

Class "P2 3 
BodL,, j 

3 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 















GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


" I 


k' i 


ISA 








■ \ 


[I ^ , _ • M, ■ 




fh 


*-• j» 


I' 




\ : 


'I.: 


ilTJ ' 

t! >\ Y 


I’vVW; * 

I'i’r 

j ; I -^ * 
■IITT.^' .' *4 ' I, . 


wyp;- ; ; 


I ‘ s I *< ■ I 1 V ' ^ 


"hy,. 

i^ » r * » ■ 


Oh 


I t • 


> f" < 


.. S’/^'X 




ImV|.I 




( I 


f t'n 






♦ ». 


1<^n . 

ri f 


TTP-J; '-, V .. • ' , 

' . 'i' 


i> 


;'<^i 


ir V ■ ‘ •, , , ,rr‘ •, 


‘v;; 

■‘It' 



' 



' ■ ' V I ' ' ■' ■ I 

. f ’ • -- I M ' I 

BK’ k :A s 


- 'W 

i-i . '•// 

■!i<'.;r’ 



V.'U.A 




Georgina’S 
Service Stars 


BY 

ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON 

AUTHOR OF “the LITTLE COLONEl’/' “geORGINA OF THE 
RAINBOWS,” “MARY WARE IN TEXAS,” ETC. 


FOREWORD 

BY ALICE HEGAN RICE 

AUTHOR OF “MRS, WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH*’ 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK LONDON 

1920 




COPYRIGHT, 1920, 

. By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



OCT -8 1920 


Copyright, 1918, by Britton Publishing Company, Inc. 
FRINTEO IN THE UNITEO STATES OF AMERICA 


©CI.Ao76901 


To 

THOSE BEHIND THE SERVICE 
FLAGS 

whose part in this world-struggle can never he 
chronicled. Their sacrifices are unnumbered and 
their wounds are within. 

To the silent Heroism which shoulders the 
double load and faces the loneliness undaunted. 

To the Patriotism which, denied the sword, 
takes up whatever weapon lies at hand and wields 
it valiantly at home. 

To the Love which **beareth all things, endureth 
all things,*^ that in its “Service Stars^* may be 
written a righteous destiny for the Nations, and 
the prophecy of a lasting peace. 


Baron: ‘‘What gnerdon will ye? 

Gareth: **Non€, For the deed’s sake have 1 
done the deed.” 

— Idylls of the King. 


FOREWORD 


With every generation of girls comes a best be- 
loved story-teller, one whom they select above all 
others to be their leader into the enchanted land 
of make-believe. For many years Louisa M. Al- 
cott held the high honor but, with her gracious 
passing, came the necessity for another guide. 

With unerring instinct the girls of the present 
generation turned to a sleepy little Kentucky 
town, stormed one of its loveliest homesteads, and, 
capturing its modest little mistress, acclaimed 
Annie Fellows Johnston their new and cherished 
leader. 

There are certain magic words, if grown-ups 
only knew them, that will open the lips of the most 
inarticulate little girls from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. 
You have only to whisper “The Little Colonel,’’ 
or “Mary Ware,” or “Georgina,” and you are 
straightway known and accepted as one of the 
elect. / 

What is the secret of this universal allegiance, 
this juvenile enthusiasm, that scarcely permits 
the ink to dry upon one volume before it clamors 
for another? If I had to express it in the Ian- 


FOREWOED 


guage of the children themselves I should say: 
“Mrs. Johnston remembers and understands.^’ 
Into maturity she has carried an amazing recol- 
lection of her first shining impressions of life, 
quite undimmed by the wear and tear of the in- 
tervening years. She sees youth, not through the 
telescope of time, but through its own radiant 
eyes, and, having seen, she understands and in- 
terprets it to itself. 

It would be difficult to estimate the influence 
and inspiration that have gone forth from her 
books. Under the bright entertaining woof of 
the stories runs the long, serious warp of their 
purpose. Hundreds of thousands of girls have 
met their own problems in the problems of their 
favorite heroines. They have seen the first per- 
plexities of life faced beautifully and spiritually; 
they have seen that stupid little word “duty” glor- 
ified into something fine and noble; they have 
seen the small and seemingly insignificant things 
of life take on a new and beautiful dignity. 

Those who enjoy the privilege of Mrs. John- 
ston’s friendship know that the verdict of the 
American Girl is right. Behind the charming 
story-teller is a woman of rare character and 
exalted vision; one in every way worthy to lead 
youth toward its highest fulfillment. 

Alice Hegan Rice. 


CONTENTS 


PART I 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Georgina Begins Her Memoirs ... 13 

II. The Misunderstood ’Teens .... 26 

III, In the Shadow of War 37 

IV. Her Ideal Girl Steps In 46 

V. A Photograph and Some Day-Dreams 56 

VI. The One and Only Star 66 

VII. A Modern Sir Gareth . • 79 

VIII. Disillusioned 91 

IX. Seven Months Later 104 

X, At Harrington Hall ri6 

XI. The Midshipman Hop 126 

XII. “Shod Goes Sure” 140 

XIII. A Work-A-Day Vacation 151 


PART II 


XIV. The Call to Arms 163 

XV. “The Gates Ajar” 173 

XVI. Home-Comings 184 

XVII. Back with the Old Crowd .... 198 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

XVIII. A War Wedding 210 

XIX, The Vigil in the Swing 224 

XX. The Highway of the Angels . . . 238 

XXI. “Pirate Gold” 243 

XXII. “The Maid Who Binds Her Warrior’s 

Sash” 257 

XXIII. Marked on the Calendar 267 

XXIV. Brave Little Carrier Pigeon! . . . 277 

XXV. “Missing” 289 

XXVI. “The Service of Shining” .... 300 


GEORGINA’S SERTICE STARS 
PART I 


**My salad days, when 1 was green in judgment.** 


GEORGINA'S SERVICE STARS 


CHAPTER I 

GEORGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS 

Up the crooked street which curves for three 
miles around the harbor comes the sound of the 
TowTicrier^s bell. It seems strange that he should 
happen along this morning, just as I’ve seated 
myself by this garret window to begin the story 
of my life, for it was the sound of his bell five 
years ago which first put it into my head to write 
it. And yet, it isn’t so strange after all, when 
one remembers the part the dear old man has had 
in my past. ‘ ‘ Uncle Darcy, ” as I ’ve always called 
him, has been mixed up with most of its impor- 
tant happenings. 

That day, when I first thought of writing my 
memoirs, was in Spring house-cleaning time, and 
I had been up here all morning, watching them 
drag out old heirlooms from the chests and cub- 
by-holes under the rafters. Each one had a his- 
13 


14 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


tory. From one of the gable "windows I could 
look down on the beach at the very spot where the 
Pilgrims first landed, and away over on the tongue 
of sand, which ends the Cape, I could see the place 
where they say the old Norse Viking, Thorwald, 
was buried nine hundred years ago. 

From this window where I am sitting, I looked 
down as I do now, on the narrow street with the 
harbor full of sails on one side and the gardens 
of the Portuguese fishermen spread out along the 
other, like blocks in a gay patchwork quilt. I re- 
member as I stood looking out I heard Uncle Dar- 
cy’s bell far down the street. He was crying a 
fish auction. And suddenly the queer feeling came 
over me that I was living in a story-book town, 
and that I was a part of it all, and some day I 
must write that story of it and me. 

I did not begin it then, being only ten years old 
at that time and not strong on spelling. It would 
have kept me continually hunting through the dic- 
tionary, or else asking Tippy how to spell things, 
and that would have led to her knowing all. Her 
curiosity about my affairs is almost unbelievable. 

But there is no reason why I should not begin 
it now. ‘‘The Life and Letters of Georgina Hunt- 
ingdon” ought to make interesting reading some 
of these days when I am famous, as I have a right 
to expect, me being the granddaughter of such a 


GEORGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS 15 


great Kentucky editor as Colonel Clayton Shir- 
ley. To write is in my blood, although on the 
Huntingdon side it’s only dry law books. 

I am going to jot down all sorts of innermost 
things in this blank book which will not be in the 
printed volume, because I might pass away before 
it is published, and if any one else had to under- 
take it he could do it more understandingly if 
he knew my secret ambitions and my opinion of 
life and people. But I shall bracket all such pri- 
vate remarks with red ink, and put a warning on 
the fly-leaf like the one on Shakespeare’s tomb: 
“Cursed be he who moves these bones.” 

He would have been dug up a thousand times, 
probably, if it had not been for that, so I shall 
protect the thoughts buried here between these 
red brackets in the same way. 

“Cursed be he who prints this part 
From the inmost sanctum of my heart.” 

Up to this time there has been little in my life 
important enough to put into a record, so it is 
just as well that I waited. But now that this awful 
war is going on over in Europe, all sorts of thrill- 
ing things may begin to happen to us any minute. 
Father says there ’s no telling how soon our coun- 
try may be fighting, too. He thinks it’s shameful 


16 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


we haven’t been doing our part all along. As he 
is a naval surgeon and has been in the service so 
many years, he will be among the first to be drawn 
into the thick of danger and adventure. 

I am old enough now to understand what that 
mil mean to us all, for I am fifteen years and 
eleven months, and could easily pass for much 
older if Barby would only let me put my hair up. 
Barby is the dearest mother that ever lived, and 
I wouldn’t for worlds appear to be criticizing her, 
but she is a bit old-fashioned in some of her ideas 
about bringing up children. I believe she and 
Tippy would like to keep me the rest of my mortal 
life, ‘ ‘ standing with reluctant feet where the brook 
and river meet,” regardless of the fact that I am 
all ready to wade in and fully able to do so. 

I asked Tippy why nobody ever quotes that 
verse farther along in the poem, which exactly ex- 
presses my sentiments: 

“Then why pause with indecision, 

When bright angels in thy vision 
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?” 

It stumped her to think of an answer for a mo- 
ment, and she made an excuse of putting the cat 
out, in order to give herself more time. But when 
she came back all she had found to say was that 


GEORGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS 17 


I needn’t think being grown np was any field 
Elysian. I was eating my wliite bread now, and 
if a girl only knew all that lay ahead of her she ’d 
let well enough alone. She’d wait for trouble to 
come to her instead of running to meet it. 

Somehow I don’t believe Tippy ever had any 
bright angels beckoning her, else she couldn’t be 
so pessimistic about my growing up. I can’t 
think of her as ever being anything but an elderly 
widow with her hair twisted into a peanut on the 
back of her head. And yet she had a lover once, 
and a wedding day, or she couldn ’t be Mrs. Maria 
Triplett now. But it’s impossible to think of her 
as being gay fifteen and dancing down the stairs 
to meet the morning with a song. One feels that 
she met it with a broom, saying : 

“Shall birds and bees and ants be wise 
While I my moments waste! 

0 let me vdth the morning rise 
And to my duties haste.” 

She’s said that to me probably as much as five 
hundred times. I shall bracket this part about her 
just as soon as I can get a bottle of red ink. But 
how I’m going to account to her for having red 
ink in my possession is more than I know. 

That’s the worst about being the only child in 


18 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


a family. They’re all so fond of you and so in- 
terested in your sayings and doings, that they 
watch every movement of your mind and body. 
You’re like a clock in a glass case with your works 
open to the gaze of the older people. It ’s all very 
well during the first years for them to keep tab 
on your development, but the trouble is most 
relatives never seem to know when you’re de- 
veloped, and have reached the point where a lit- 
tle privacy is your right. It ’s maddening to have 
to give a reason every time you turn around. 

All the lives of noted people which I have read 
begin with the person’s birthplace and who his 
parents were, and his early acts which showed he 
gave promise of being a genius. So I’ll pause 
right here for a brief outline of such things. 

My name is Georgina Huntingdon. A name to 
be proud of — so Tippy has always impressed on 
me — and one hard to live up to. She used to show 
it to me on the silver christening cup that came 
down to me from the great-great-aunt for whom I 
am named. She’d take the tip of my finger in 
hers and solemnly trace the slim-looped letters 
around the rim, till I came to feel that it was a 
silver name, and that I must keep it shining by 
growing up unusually smart and good. That I 
owed it to the cup or the great-aunt or the Pil- 


GEORGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS 19 


grim monument or something, to act so as to add 
lustre to the name. 

Tippy is a distant cousin on father’s side. She 
has lived with us ever since Barby brought me 
up here from Kentucky, where I was born. 
Father, being a naval surgeon, was otf in foreign 
ports most of the time, and Barby, being such a 
young and inexperienced mother, needed her com- 
panionship. Barby is lots younger than father. 
It was hard for her at first, coming away with 
just me, from that jolly big family down South 
who adored her, to this old Cape Cod homestead 
that had been boarded up so long. 

Lonely and gray, it stands at the end of town, 
up by the breakwater, facing the very spot on 
the beach where the Pilgrims landed. One of 
them was an ancestor of mine, so the big monu- 
ment overlooking the harbor and the tip of the 
Cape was put up partly in his honor. 

Really, several pages might well be devoted to 
my ancestors, for one was a minute-man whose 
name is in the history I studied at school. His 
powder-horn hangs over the dining-room mantel, 
and Tippy used to shame me with it when I was 
afraid of rats or the dark cellarway. If I were 
asked to name three things which have influenced 
me most in arousing my ambition to overcome my 
faults and to do something big and really worth 


20 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


while in the world, I’d name my christening cup, 
that Pilgrim monument and the old powder-horn. 

With such a heritage it is unthinkable that I 
should settle down to an ordinary career. Some- 
thing inside of me tells me that I am destined to 
make my name an honored household word in 
many climes. I’ve considered doing this in sev- 
eral ways. 

It might be well to mention here that my earliest 
passion was for the stage. That will explain why 
quotations came so trippingly from my tongue 
at times. I learned yards and yards of poems 
and Shakespeare’s plays for declamation, and I’m 
always given one of the leading parts in the ama- 
teur theatricals at the High School or the Town 
Hall. My looks may have something to do with 
that, however. As it might seem conceited for me 
to describe myself as my mirror shows me. I’ll 
just paste some newspaper clippings on this page 
describing ditferent plays I’ve been in. Several 
of them speak of my dark eyes and glowing com- 
plexion, also my “wealth of nut-brown curls,” and 
my graceful dancing. 

But in my Sophomore year at High School I be- 
gan to feel that literature might be my forte, even 
more than acting. R. B. (which initials will stand 
for “red brackets” until I get the ink). The rea- 
son for that feeling is that my themes in English 


GEORGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS 21 


were always marked so high that the class nick- 
named me “Abou ben Ahdem/’ 

Last summer I began a novel called ‘‘Divided,’’ 
which the girls were crazy about. It was sug- 
gested by Jean Ingelow’s poem by that name and 
is awfully sad. Really, it kept me so depressed 
that I found I wasn’t half enjoying my vacation. 
I simply lived the heroine’s part myself. 

Now that I am a Senior, it seems to me that 
J ournalism offers a greater field than fiction. We 
had a debate last term which convinced me of it. 
George Woodson had the affirmative, and I didn’t 
mind being beaten because he used grandfather 
for one of his arguments, and said so many nice 
things about his editorials being epoch-making 
and his inspired phrases moulding public opinion, 
and being caught up as slogans by all parties, lead- 
ing on to victory. He spoke, too, of them being 
quoted not only by Punch and the London Times, 
but by papers in France and Australia. 

R. B. (I am fully determined either to write 
the leading novel of the century, or to own and 
edit a newspaper which shall be a world-power.) 

The seashore was my first schoolroom. Barby 
taught me to write in the sand and to spell words 
with shells and pebbles. I learned Arithmetic by 
adding and subtracting such things as the sails in 
the harbor and the gulls feeding at ebb-tide. On 


22 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


stormy days when we were home-bound, I counted 
the times the fog-bell tolled, or in the early dark 
counted how often Wood End lighthouse blinked 
its red eye at me. 

But I must get on with my story. If I am to 
have room in this book for all the big happenings 
of life, which I feel sure lie ahead of me, I cannot 
devote too much space to early memories, no mat- 
ter how cherished. Probably in the final revision 
all the scenes I have lived through will be crowded 
into one act or chapter. I may start it in this 
fashion : 

Time 

First fifteen years of life just ended. 

Place 

An ancient fishing town between the sand- 
dunes and the sea, where artists flock every 
summer to paint, its chief attraction for them 
seeming to be its old streets and wharves, the 
Cape Cod people whom they call “quaint” 
and the Portuguese fisher-folk. 

Principal characters besides myself and family, 
already described. 

Daniel Darcy 

The old Tovmcrier, whom I call “Uncle 
Darcy” and love as dearly as if he were really 
kin to me. 


GEOEGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS 23 
Aunt Elspeth 

His wife. They are my ideal Darby and Jean. 
Captain Kidd 

A darling Irish terrier, half mine and half 
Richard’s. 

Richakd Moreland 

Who comes every summer to stay with his 
cousin, Mr. James Milford, in the bungalow 
with the Green Stairs. He has been like an 
own brother to me since the days when we 
first played pirate together, when he was 
“Dare-devil Dick, the Dread Destroyer,” and 
I was “Gory George, the Menace of the 
Main. ’ ’ Barby took him under her wing tlien 
because his o^vn mother was dead and they’ve 
been devoted to each other ever since. 

This summer Richard came alone, because his 
father, who always spends his vacations with him, 
did not come back from his Paris studio as usual. 
He is in the trenches now, fighting with the Al- 
lies. His friends shake their heads when they 
speak of him, and say what a pity such a brilliantly 
gifted fellow should run the risk of being killed 
or maimed. It would be such a terrible waste. He 
could serve his age better with his brush than a 
bayonet. 

But when Richard talks oi him his face lights 


24 


GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


up as if he fairly worships him for being such a 
hero as to sacrifice his art for the cause and go 
in just as a private. He has said to me a dozen 
times, ‘‘That is why the Allies will win this war, 
Georgina, because men like Dad are putting it 
through. They are fighting with their souls as 
well as their bodies.” 

That’s all Richard talks about now. He’s per- 
pectly wild to go himself. Though he’s only sev- 
enteen and a half, he is six feet tall and so strong 
he could take a man’s place. He says if they’d 
so much as give him a chance to drive an ambu- 
lance he’d be satisfied, but his father won’t con- 
sent. 

He’s running his Cousin James’ car this sum- 
mer instead of the regular chautfeur, and keeping 
it in repair. Mr. Milford pays him a small salary, 
and (nobody knows it but me) Richard is saving 
every cent. He says if he can once get across the 
water he’ll find some way to do his part. In the 
meantime he’s digging away at his French, and 
Uncle Darcy’s son Dan is teaching him wireless. 
He’s so busy some days I scarcely see him. It’s 
so different from the way it was last summer when 
he was at our house from morning till night. 

The same jolly crowds are back this summer 
at the Gray Inn and the Nelson cottage, and Laura 
Nelson’s midshipman cousin from Annapolis is 


GEORGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS 25 


here for a week. I shall not name and describe 
them now, but simply group them as minor char- 
acters. 

Laura says, however, that she feels sure that 
the midshipman is destined to be anything but 
a minor character in my life. She prophecies he 
will be leading man in a very short while. That 
is so silly in Laura, although, of course, she 
couldn^t know just how silly, because I’ve never 
explained to her that I am dedicated to a Career. 

I have not said positively that I shall never 
marry, and sometimes I think I might be happier 
to have a home and about four beautiful and in- 
teresting children ; that is, if it could be managed 
without interfering with my one great ambition 
in life. But positively, that must come first, no 
matter what the cost. Only thus can i reach the 
high goal I have set for myself and write mine as 
‘‘one of the few, the immortal names that were 
not born to die.” 



CHAPTER n 


THE MISUNDERSTOOD ’tEENS 

“0 FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness’’ where 
I could write without anybody butting in to ask 
what I’m doing ! I suppose it’s the penalty I must 
pay now for having been such a vain little pea- 
cock in the beginning. Because father praised my 
first letters when I was learning to write, I passed 
them over to the family for more praise before 
sealing them. Now they’ve grown to feel that it 
is their right to read them, and to expect it as a 
matter of course. 

It is the same way with all my attempts at 
stories and verses. If I should take to turning 
the key in the door at this late day, they’d think 
it queer, and I’m afraid Barby would feel a bit 
hurt and shut out of my life, because we’ve al- 
ways shared eve-rything of that sort. 

So I just carry the book around with me in my 
knitting bag, and scribble a few lines whenever 
there is an opportunity. Most of this will have 
to be witten down on the beach where I am now. 

26 


THE MISUNDERSTOOD ’TEENS 27 


It’s too hot up in the garret these days. I sit 
cross-legged in the sand behind an overturned 
rowboat, drawn up out of reach of the tide. All 
that can be seen of me from the house is a big 
garden hat flopping down over the shoulders of 
my pink smock. Smocks and flopping hats are as 
common as clams in this old fishing town, full of 
artists and summer girls, so when I tuck my 
“■wealth of nut-bro-wn curls” up out of sight, no- 
body recognizes me at a little distance. If any one 
comes along I begin knitting on a bright blue muf- 
fler that I’m making for a Belgian orphan. It 
seems dreadfully deceitful, but what else can I 
do? 

I haven’t any place where I can keep the book 
between times. Tippy is such a thorough-going 
housekeeper that she knows what is in every 
drawer and closet in this house, from top to bot- 
tom. Neither she nor Barby would dream of read- 
ing a diary or even a scrap of writing belonging 
to any one else but me. But they think of me as 
a part of themselves, I suppose, or as still such 
an infant that if they were to come across this 
tliey’d smile indulgently and say, “The dear 
child. Was anything ever so diverting and 
clever!” And they’d read it with that pleased, 
proud expression you see on a family’s face when 


28 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


they discover the baby’s first tooth or find that it 
can stand alone. 

I’d keep it at Uncle Darcy’s, down at Fishbnrn 
Court, but I seldom go down there now oftener 
than once a week, and I want to make a practice 
of filling a few pages every day. 

Fishburn Court would be an ideal place in which 
to write. It’s a cluster of little old houses set 
around the edge of a sand dune, and hidden away 
from the heart of the tovm by some tall buildings. 
A crooked, sandy lane leads into it from one of 
the back streets. There’s an apple-tree in Uncle 
Darcy’s yard with thick grass under it, and a two- 
seated wooden swing where an old yellow-nosed 
cat sleeps all day. You can look up and see bil- 
lowy white clouds floating in the blue overhead, 
and smell the salt of the sea, but it’s so shut in 
that although it’s only a short distance from the 
beach you barely hear the chug of the motor boats, 
and the street cries are so faint, that you feel 
you’re far, far away from the world, like a nun in 
a cloister. 

Sitting there, I’ve sometimes thought I’d like 
to be that — a nun in a cloister, to walk with rapt, 
saint-like face, my hands folded lily-wise over my 
breast. It must be lovely to feel that one is a 
pure white saint, a bride of heaven. Sometimes I 


THE MISUNDERSTOOD ’TEENS 29 


think I’d rather be that than a world-renowned 
author. 

I often wonder what great part I’m destined to 
play in the universe. Really the world is so full 
of things to do and be, that one needs as many 
lives as a cat. I’d like one life in which to be a 
nun, another an actress, another in which to shine 
as a peerless wit and beauty, the social leader in 
a brilliant salon like that great French madame — 
I can ’t think of her name. Then, of course, there ’s 
the life I want for my literary career, and one in 
which to be just a plain wife and mother. 

One thing is certain, if I ever have a daughter 
I’ll try to remember how a girl feels at my age; 
although I don’t see how one who has been one can 
ever forget. And there are some things she shall 
be allowed to decide for herself. R. B. (As long 
as I was a mere child Barby seemed to understand 
me perfectly. But now that I lack only one paltry 
inch of being as tall as she is, she doesn’t seem 
able to get my point of view at all. She doesn’t 
seem to realize that I’ve put away childish things, 
and that when you’re in your teens you’re done 
with doll-rags.) 

There is nothing so bitter in life as being mis- 
understood. If you have cruel step-parents who 
mistreat you out of pure meanness, everybody 
sympathizes with you. But if you have devoted 


30 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


own parents who hurt you through a mistaken 
idea that they’re doing it for your own good, no- 
body sympathizes with you. I’d rather be beaten 
or locked in my room on bread and water than 
have Minnie Waite or Daisy Poole tagging after 
me forevermore. 

I wasn’t at home the day Mrs. Saxe came 
around, organizing the ‘‘Busy Bees” to do Red 
Cross work for the Belgians. But Barby put my 
name down and paid the fifty cents dues, and said 
I ’d be glad to do my part. Well, I am glad, but I ’d 
already been trying to do it ever since the war 
started ‘ ‘ over there. ” I ’ve rolled bandages every 
Saturday afternoon and taken part in two plays 
and waited on the table at all the lawn fetes, and 
I’m knitting my sixth sweater for French and Bel- 
gian orphans. 

But I draw the line at being a “Busy Bee,” and 
meeting around with a lot of little girls not one 
of them over thirteen and most of them younger. 
And Minnie Waite has a crush on me anyhow, and 
is harder to get rid of than a plague of sand-fleas. 
I could have cried when Barby told me what she 
had let me in for, and I couldn’t help sounding 
cross when I said she might at least have consulted 
me first. It was too much to have that miserable 
bunch of kids wished on to me. 

But Barby only reminded me that I was using 


THE MISUNDERSTOOD ’TEENS 31 


slang, and said cheerfnlly, “Did it ever occur to 
you, Baby Mine, that you are three whole years 
younger than Laura Nelson, and yet you want to 
be with her every moment ? Possibly she may feel 
that you are tagging.” 

Laura is one of the summer girls, and Barby 
never has approved of our intimacy, just because 
she is so much older and has college men coming 
to see her now instead of High School boys and 
all that sort of thing. I didn ’t attempt to explain 
to Barby that we are as congenial as twins, and 
that Laura seeks my society quite as much as I do 
hers. I think Barby hoped that I’d become so in- 
terested in the Busy Bees that I wouldn ’t have any 
time for Laura, and she said a great deal about 
them needing a leader, and how much good I could 
do if I went into it as an enthusiastic president 
instead of a half-hearted one. 

Of course, when she put it that way, the privi- 
lege and duty of being an inspiration whenever 
possible, I had to give in as gracefully as I could. 
But I’m done now, after yesterday’s perform- 
ance. 

I was over at Laura’s to lunch. Her midship- 
man cousin, Mr. Tucker, was off on a fishing trip, 
but he was to be back early in the afternoon and 
she wanted me to take him off her hands while 


32 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


she talked to some one else. Her most ardent 
admirer was coming to call. 

So she put my hair up for me the way she wears 
hers, flat over her ears and a sort of soft, fluffy 
whirl on top, and loaned me a pair of her green 
silk stockings and high-heeled white slippers, in- 
stead of my “growing girE^ pumps that Father 
insists upon. I have somewhere read that “The 
consciousness of being well dressed imparts a 
blissfulness to the human heart that even religion 
is powerless to give or take away, and its im- 
portance can hardly be over-estimated by the 
feminine mind.’’ 

I heartily agree, for just that difference in hair 
and heels made me feel and act perfectly groAvn 
up. I knew that Mr. Tucker thought I was as old 
as I seemed from the way he called me “Miss 
Huntingdon.” And he had such a complimentary 
way of looking at me, and was so appreciative of 
my repartee that I found it easier to talk to him 
than any one I had ever met before. I found 
myself discussing the deep questions of life with 
him with an ease I couldn’t have had, if I had 
been conscious of juvenile curls bobbing over my 
shoulders. 

But right in the middle of our interesting con- 
versation came the most awful racket. A donkey- 
cart full of girls drove in from the street, past 


THE MISUNDERSTOOD ’TEENS 33 


the window where we were sitting. Minnie Waite 
was standing up, driving, her hair streaming like 
a wild Amazon. And they all yodelled and cat- 
called till I went out on the porch. It was the 
dreadfullest noise you ever heard, for the donkey 
balks every other step unless he’s headed for 
home, and the only way they can make him travel 
is to shake a tin can half-full of pebbles behind 
him. 

They asked had I forgotten that the Busy Bees 
were to have an extra meeting at my house to 
dress dolls for the Bazaar, and the whole bunch 
was over there waiting. They couldn’t start till 
I got there, me being president, and my mother 
said for me to get straight into the cart and go 
back with them. 

I knew perfectly well that Barby had never 
sent any such sounding message as that, but I 
also knew the only way to keep them from making 
matters worse was to get them away as soon as 
possible. They w’ere talking at the tops of their 
voices, and nobody knew what they’d say next. 
The quickest way to stop them was to climb into 
that babyish donkey-cart and jolt off with them, 
just like a kid myself. 

So I ran back and explained to Laura and made 
my hurried adieux. Mr. Tucker went down the 
steps with me to help me in. Of course, those 


34 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


horrid children noticed my green stockings, as 
I’d never worn that color before, and they made 
remarks about them and my high heels, when I 
tripped going down the steps, not being used to 
them. I would have fallen all over myself if 
Mr. Tucker hadn’t caught me. He didn’t seem to 
hear what they were saying, but Laura’s little sis- 
ter Dodo, who was hanging over the railing of the 
upstairs porch, listening like the long-eared little 
pitcher that she is, called down in her high, shrill 
voice : 

‘ * Oh, Georgina ! You ’ve forgotten your pumps, 
and are going off in Laura’s. Wait. I’ll throw 
them down to you.” 

Well, of course the donkey balked just then 
and wouldn ’t start till they began rattling the tin 
can full of stones, and in the midst of the pande- 
monium there was a whack-bang! on the porch 
steps, and down came my old flat-heeled Mary- 
Jane pumps, with my white stocldngs stuffed in- 
side of them. Mr. Tucker picked them up and 
put them in the cart. He made some awfully nice, 
polite speech about Cinderella, but I was so mor- 
tified and so mad that 1 turned perfectly plum- 
colored I am sure. As we dashed off I wished I 
could be a real busy bee for about a minute. A 
vicious one. 

Now I feel that I never want to lay eyes on Mr. 


THE MISUNDERSTOOD ’TEENS 35 

Tucker again after such a humiliating experience. 
It is a pity, for he is the most congenial man I 
ever met. Our views on the deeper things of life 
are exactly the same. 

The worst of it is I can’t explain all that to 
Barby. She made light of the affair when I cried, 
and told her how the girls had mortified and em- 
barrassed me. Said it was foolish to take such 
a trifle to heart so bitterly; that probably Mr. 
Tucker would never give it a second thought, or 
if he did he would laugh over the incident and the 
little girl, and forget them entirely. 

But that was cold comfort. I couldn’t tell her 
that I didn’t want to be laughed at, and I didn’t 
want to be forgotten by the first and only really 
congenial man I had ever met. Yet I might have 
told her all that if she had approached me dif- 
ferently. I long to confide in her if she would 
talk to me as one woman to another. 

Instead, she referred to a little Rainbow Club 
that Richard and I started long ago. We pre- 
tended that evefy time we made anyone happy it 
was the same as making a rainbow in the world.. 
She asked me if I was tired of being her little 
prism, and to think how happy I could make those 
girls by interesting myself in their affairs, and a 
whole lot more like that. 

It made me so cross to be soothed in that kind, 


36 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


kindergarten way that while she was talking I 
burrowed back in my closet as if looking for some- 
thing and said ^^Barn!” in a hollow whisper, be- 
tween set teeth. One can’t “be a kitten and cry 
mew” always. 



CHAPTER m 


IN THE SHADOW OF WAB 

Last Wednesday I spent the day at Fishbnrn 
Court. My visits seem to mean so much to Aunt 
Elspeth, now that her time is divided between 
her bed and wheeled chair. I improvised a cos- 
tume and did the song and dance for her that I 
am going to give in the French Relief entertain- 
ment next week. And I made a blueberry pie for 
dinner, and set the little kitchen in shining order, 
and put fresh bows on her cap, and straightened 
out all the bureau drawers. 

When everything you do is appreciated and ad- 
mired and praised until you are fairly basking in 
approval, it makes you feel so good inside that 
you want to keep on that way forever. You just 
love to be sweet and considerate. But afterwards 
it^s such a comedown to go back home to those who 
take it as a matter of course that you should be 
helpful, and who feel it is their duty to improve 
your character by telling you what your duty is. 
It rubs you the wrong way, and makes life much 
harder. 


37 


38 GEOEGINA'S SERVICE STARS 


Somehow, going to Fishburn Court is like climb- 
ing up into the Pilgrim monument and looking 
down on the to^vn. Seen from that height, the 
things that loomed up so big when you were down 
on their level shrink to nothing. Maybe it is be- 
cause Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth have lived 
so very, very long that they can look down on life 
that way and see it from a great height as God 
does. I always think of them when I read that 
verse, “A thousand years in thy sight is but as 
yesterday.’* That is why nothing seems to mat- 
ter to them very much but loving each other and 
their neighbors as themselves. 

I came away from there resolved to turn over 
a new leaf. I am sorry now that I said what I did 
the other day in the closet, but I don’t feel that I 
have a right to blot it out of this record. The 
good and the bad should stand together in one’s 
memoirs. It makes a character seem more human. 
I never felt that I had anything in conunon with 
Washington until I read that he sometimes gave 
away to violent fits of anger. 

I am now resolved lo make those Busy Bees the 
power for good which Barby thinks I can, and 
quit thinking of my own feelings in the matter, 
of how disagreeable it is to have them eternally 
tagging after me. After all, what difference will 
it make a thousand years from now if they do 


IN THE SHADOW OF WAR 


39 


tag! What difference if one little ant in the uni- 
verse is happy or unhappy for one atom of time? 
When you think of yourself that way, as just a 
tiny ant sitting on the equator of eternity you 
can put up with almost anything. 

A whole week has gone by since I wrote the 
above sentence, and in that time the most exciting 
thing has happened, in addition to celebrating my 
sixteenth birthday. The birthday came first. 
Barby’s gift to me was a darling rowboat, 
light and graceful as a cockle-shell. Uncle Darcy 
carved my initials on the oars, and Richard came 
after dark the night before and dragged it up into 
the yard, and tied it under the holiday tree. Next 
morning my presents were all piled in the boat 
instead of being tied to the branches, for which 
I was very thankful. It made me feel that I had 
come to a boundary line which the family recog- 
nized, when they discarded the old custom of deco- 
rating the holiday-tree. They no longer consid- 
ered me an infant. 

I have been wild for a boat of my own for two 
years, and was so excited I could scarcely eat 
my breakfast. I was out in it all day, first with 
Barby and Richard, and, afterward, with Babe 
Nolan and Judith Gilfred, who came to lunch. 
Ordinarily, I would fill pages describing my pres- 


40 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


ents and what we did, but I can’t wait to tell the 
climax. 

Late in the afternoon Richard came again and 
rowed me over to the Lighthouse and back. When 
we came up the beach on our way home to supper 
the sun was just setting. It was all so beautiful 
and I was so happy that I began humming * ‘ The 
End of a Perfect Day.” But it wasn’t the end, 
for when we went into the house the exciting thing 
happened. Who should rise up suddenly in the 
dusk and put his arms around me but Father, 
home on unexpected shore leave. I hadn’t seen 
him for a year. 

Even Barby didn’t know he was coming. It 
seemed too good to be true that he should be in 
time for the lighting of my birthday candles. As 
if it wasn’t more than enough just to have him 
back again, safe and sound, he brought me the 
most adorable little wrist-watch, and from then 
on till midnight when my eyes weren’t on him 
they were on it. It’s so heavenly to have every- 
body in the world that you love best and every- 
thing you want most all together at the same 
time. 

We had to talk fast and crowd as much as pos- 
sible into the hours. I felt that I had at last 
stepped into my field Elysian, when nobody said 
a word about my running along to bed. I think 


IN THE SHADOW OF WAR 


41 


they would have let me sit up though, even if I 
hadn’t been sixteen, the time was so precious. 

Up till this time the war had seemed a far- 
away, unreal thing, just like the tales we used to 
shudder over, of the heathen babies thrown to 
the crocodiles. I had been working for the Red 
Cross and the Belgian orphans in the same spirit 
that I’ve worked for the Missionary Society, 
wanting to help the cause, but not feeling it a 
personal matter. But when Father talked about 
it in his grave, quiet way, I began to understand 
what war really is. It is like a great wild beast, 
devouring our next-door neighbors and liable to 
spring at our throats any minute. It is something 
everybody should rise up and help to throttle. 

I understand now why Richard is so crazy on 
the subject. It isn’t just thirst for adventure, as 
his cousin James says, although “Dare-devil 
Dick” is a good name for him. He sees the dan- 
ger as Father sees it, and wants to do his part to 
rid the world of it. He talked a long time with 
Father, begging him to use his influence to get 
him into some kind of service over there. But 
Father says the same thing that Mr. Moreland did. 
That he’s too young, and the only thing for him 
to do is to go back to school in the fall and fit 
himself for bigger service when his country has 
greater need of him. Richard went off whistling. 


42 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


but I knew he was horribly disappointed from the 
way his hat was pulled down over his eyes. 

The next morning when I went down to break- 
fast I felt as if the wild beast had already sprung 
as far as our door-step, if not actually at our 
throats, for Barby sat pale and anxious-eyed be- 
hind the coffee urn, and her lips were trembly 
when I kissed her good-morning. Father had re- 
ceived his orders to report in Washington in 
forty-eight hours, and we had hoped to keep him 
with us at least two weeks. He is called to a 
consultation about some extensive preparations 
to be made for marine hospital work. He had al- 
ready been notified that he was to be put at the 
head of it, and he may have to go abroad to study 
conditions, almost immediately. 

I knew from the dumb misery in Barby ’s eyes 
she was thinking of the same things I was — sub- 
marines and sunken mines, etc., but neither of 
us mentioned them, of course. Instead, we tried 
to be as jolly as possible, and began to plan the 
nicest way we could think of to spend our one day 
together. Suddenly Father said he’d settle it. 
He ’d spend it all vuth me, any way I chose, while 
Barby packed her trunk and got ready to go back 
to Washington with him. He’d probably be there 
a week or ten days and he wasn’t going one step 
without her. 


IN THE SHADOW OF WAR 


43 


Then I realized how grown-np one really is at 
sixteen. A year ago I would have teased to be 
taken along, and maybe would have gone off in a 
comer and cried, and felt dreadfully left out over 
such an arrangement. But I saw the glance that 
passed between them when he said it, and I under- 
stood perfectly. Barby^s face was radiant. You 
may adore your only child, but the love of your 
life comes first. And it should. I was glad they 
wanted to go off that way on a sort of second 
honeymoon trip. It would be dreadfully sad to 
have one’s parents cease to be all in all to each 
other. Babe Nolan’s mother and stepfather seem 
that way, bored to death with each other. 

Two things stand out so vividly in that last 
day that I never can forget them. One is our 
walk down through the town, when I almost burst 
with pride, going along beside Father, so tall and 
distinguished looking in his uniform, and seeing 
the royal welcome people gave him at every step. 
They came out of the stores and the houses to 
shake hands with him, the people who’d known 
him as a little boy and gone to school with him, 
and they seemed so really fond of him and so glad 
to have him back, that I fairly loved them for it, 
even people I hadn’t liked especially before. 

The second thing was the talk we hadmp here in 
the garret in the gable window-seat, when he came 


44 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


up to look for some things he had packed away 
in one of the chests, twenty years ago. 

We did lots of other things, of course; went 
rowing in the new boat to a place on the beach 
where he used to picnic when he was a boy. We 
took our lunch along and ate it there. After- 
wards we tramped back into the dunes a little 
way, just to let him feel the Cape Cod sand in his 
shoes once more, he said. It was high tide Avhen 
we got back to the boat-house, so we got our bath- 
ing suits and went in. He was so surprised and 
pleased at some of my diving stunts, and taught 
me a new one. He is a magnificent swimmer him- 
self. 

His hair is iron gray at the temples, and I’ve 
always been halfway afraid of him before — that 
is, afraid to say right out whatever I happened 
to think or feel. But it was different this time. 
I felt that he understood me better than anybody 
else in the world, even as well as Barby used to, 
when I was younger. As we went back home he 
said the nicest thing. He said it seemed to him 
that we must have been boys together at some 
time in our lives. That I was such a jolly good 
chum. 

I can’t think about that last evening or the go- 
ing away yesterday morning without the tears 
starting. But I’m thankful I didn’t break down 


IN THE SHADOW OF WAR 


45 


at the station. I couldn’t have kept from it if 
it hadn’t been for Captain Kidd, who frisked 
along with us. Just at the hardest moment he 
stood up on his hind legs and saluted. I’d never 
seen him do it before. It’s a trick Richard taught 
him lately. It was so cunning everybody laughed, 
and I managed to pull myself together till the 
train started. 

But I made up for it when I got back home 
and came up here to the gable window-seat where 
Father and I had that last precious talk together, 
with his arm around me and my head on his shoul- 
der. I nearly bawled my eyes out as I recalled 
each dear thing he said about my being old enough 
now to understand business matters, and what he 
wanted me to do in case the United States went 
to war; how I was to look after Barby if any- 
thing happened to him ; and what I was to do for 
Uncle Darcy and Dan’s children. That he relied 
pn me just as if I were a son, because I was a 
true Huntingdon, and no Huntingdon woman had 
ever flinched from a duty or failed to measure up 
to what was expected of her. 

I keep thinking, what if he should never come 
back to talk to me again in that near, dear way. 
But . . . I’ll have to stop before any more 
splashes blot up this page. 


CHAPTER IV 


HEK IDEAL GIEL STEPS IN 

At.t. the time Barby was gone I didn’t write a 
line in this record. I couldn’t. Things seemed 
too trivial. Besides, the house had that strange, 
hushed air that you feel at a funeral when you’re 
waiting for it to begin. I couldn’t bear to touch 
the piano. It didn’t seem right to be playing gay 
tunes while there was such awful sorrow in the 
world, and in all probability Father and Barby 
were spending their last days together. 

I declined the invitation to Laura Nelson’s 
dance on that account, and after Tippy had gone 
to bed I put on Barby ’s only black dress, a chif- 
fon dinner gown that she had left behind in her 
closet, and sat by the window in the moonlight, 
listening to the music of piano and drum floating 
up from the Nelson cottage. I had turned the 
silver trimming in so as not to show, and looking 
down on the clinging black folds that trailed 
around me, I pictured to myself so vividly the 
way an orphan or a young widow must feel, that 
46 


HER IDEAL GIRL STEPS IN 


47 


the tears splashed down into my lap till I was 
afraid it would make the chiffon all crinkly. The 
dance music sounded perfectly heartless to me. I 
could understand how bitter it might make one feel 
who was really in mourning. 

When Barby came home and I told her about 
it, she said that I should have gone to the dance ; 
that our first duty to ourselves and the world is 
to keep ourselves normal. After I’d spent the 
morning helping her unpack and hearing every- 
thing she had to tell about her week with Father 
and his departure to some unknown port, she 
told me she wanted me to stay out of doors all 
the rest of the day. I must go on the Quest of 
Cheerful Things, and she hoped that I’d be able 
to report at least two adventures. 

The two things which happened are that I went 
to a furniture auction and met my ideal girl. 
While they’re not particularly cheerful things, 
they’re important enough to be recorded here. 

It began by Babe Nolan bumping into me as I 
turned a corner, after I’d been out nearly half 
the afternoon. Babe is a far cry from anybody’s 
ideal girl, that is, as far as looks and manners are 
concerned, but she has her good points. For one 
thing she is absolutely sincere, and it’s always 
interesting to hear what new trouble she’s been in. 

She had her bathing suit bundled carelessly 


48 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


under her arm, and said she couldn’t stay be- 
cause she’d promised to be up at the West End 
beach by four o’clock, and it was almost that time 
then. But she’d heard that there was a furniture 
auction going on in front of the old Holloway 
house, which has been vacant for years, and she 
just had to go by and see if there was a white 
bedstead in the lot, with hollow brass balls on the 
posts. She was sure that there couldn’t be, be- 
cause she’d been told that the furniture had been 
brought up from Truro or Wellfleet, or some place 
down the Cape. It belonged to relatives of the 
Holloway family. Still she felt possessed to look, 
and she supposed she’d go through life like the 
Wandering Jew, looking for that bedstead and 
never finding it. 

Then she told me why. Babe is very unfortu- 
nate in her family life, having a stepfather which 
complicates matters. All her brothers and sisters 
are either steps or halves. She has no whole ones. 
And they are all socialists in a way, believing in 
a community of interests, such as wearing each 
other’s clothes without asking, and using each 
other’s things. Right while Babe was talking to 
me she had on one of her half-brother Jim’s out- 
ing shirts, turned in V at the neck instead of her 
own middy blouse, because Viola had walked off 
with her last clean one. 


HER IDEAL GIRL STEPS IN 


49 


With everybody free to root through her bureau 
drawers, and with no locks in the house that work, 
of course she has absolutely no privacy, and she 
had several letters that she wouldn’t have the 
family read for worlds. They were too sacred, 
and she couldn’t bear to destroy them, for they 
breathed devotion in every line, and were her first 
of the kind. She thought of burying them under 
the garden hedge, but that would have necessi- 
tated digging them up every time she wanted to 
re-read them, and there was danger of the puppy 
trailing her and unearthing them if she went too 
often to that hallowed spot. 

One night just before she and Viola went to 
Yarmouth for a visit, she found, quite by accident, 
that the brass balls on her bedposts were screwed 
on and were hollow. So she folded the letters up 
small and stutfed them into one, with a dried rose 
and a broken cutf-link that had associations, and 
screwed it back tight. 

What was her horror when she came home two 
weeks later to find that her mother had had the 
room done over in their absence as a surprise for 
her and Viola. She had bought twin beds of 
bird’s-eye maple and given one old bed to a Sal- 
vation Army man who was going through town 
collecting junk, and sent the other to a camp up 
in the White Mountains where her mother’s peo- 


50 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


pie go every year. She didn’t know which went 
where. 

Now there’s no telling how, when or where 
those letters will next see the light of day. It was 
had enongh to lose the letters, but Babe says she ’ll 
simply die if they fall into her Aunt Mattie’s 
hands. She’s the prim, cold kind who makes you 
feel that anything sentimental should never be 
mentioned. It’s something to be ashamed of. 
Tippy’s that kind. 

I have written all this out not because it’s im- 
portant in itself, but because it’s a link in a chain. 
If I hadn’t happened to meet Babe and go with 
her to hunt for that bedstead, I wouldn’t have 
been at the auction when my ideal girl came along, 
or when Richard drove by and I hailed him to 
borrow a quarter, and he stopped and saw her. 
What she said and what he said, and what hap- 
pened afterward was like a game of “Conse- 
quences.” 

All sorts of stuff lay around on the grass — 
dishes and bed-slats and odd andirons. There was 
a beaded mat and a glass case of wax flowers, and 
a motto, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” cross- 
stitched in pink and gray worsted, sitting right 
out on the grass. Babe said probably it was the 
work of hands long dead and gone, and didn’t 
it seem sad that they should come to this end? 


HER IDEAL GIRL STEPS IN 


51 


But the tide was in and she’d have to go. She 
might have known she’d not find that bedstead. 
Would I walk up to the beach with her? 

But I told her no, I’d just rummage around 
awhile longer to see what else there was for sale. 
Maybe I could get some “local color” that way. 
Babe knows about my writing. She is one of 
the girls I read my novel to, and she respects my 
talent. So she left me. I did get some local color 
by staying, and took out my pencil and pad, which 
I always carry around in my knitting bag, and 
made a note of it. 

An old-fashioned hoop-skirt was thrown across 
a rose-bush, and a black silk bonnet lay under it, 
beside a pair of worn shoes. Both the bonnet and 
the shoes had what Tippy calls a “genteel” air, 
and made me think they must have belonged to a 
prim maiden lady with proud nose and slender 
feet, probably called “Miss Althea.” The name 
came to me like an inspiration, I could almost see 
her standing by the rose-bush. 

Just then some boys, who were wrestling 
around, bumping into everything, upset a barrel 
on the grass, and a great pile of framed photo- 
graphs came rolling out. Some of them were com- 
ical enough for a Sunday supplement, women in 
tight basques and little saucer hats, and men with 
whiskers — beards or perfectly ridiculous bushy 


52 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


“burnsides.” A crowd of summer people began 
making joking remarks about them to set each 
other to laughing. 

But there was one in an oval walnut frame that 
I couldn’t bear to have them make fun of, the 
photograph of a lady with a little boy leaning 
against her shoulder. She had a strong, kind face, 
with such steadfast eyes looking straight at you, 
that you just knew everybody went to her with 
their troubles. The boy was a dear little fellow, 
serious as a judge, with his hair brushed in a long 
roll on the top of his head in one of those old- 
fashioned coxcomb curls. 

One of the girls from the hotel picked it up and 
began declaiming a verse from “Somebody’s 
Darling/’ that’s in one of our school readers. 

“Kiss him once for somebody’s sake. 

# * # * * * 

One bright curl from its fair mates take 

They were somebody’s pride you know.” 

It came over me in a great wave how I would 
feel if it were Darby’s picture thrown out that 
way for strangers to ridicule and step on, or the 
one I’ve always loved of Father, when he was a 
little boy, hugging his white rabbit. I felt that I 
simpl> must save it from further desecration. 
The only way was to buy it. The man said I could 


HER IDEAL GIRL STEPS IN 


53 


have any frame in the barrel, picture thrown in 
free, for twenty-five cents, without waiting for it 
to be put up at auction. They were in a hurry to 
get through. I told him I’d take it, then I discov- 
ered I hadn ’t a penny left in my knitting bag. I ’d 
spent my last one on the way down, treating Babe 
to a soda water. 

It was right while I was standing there with the 
frame in my hands, uncertain whether to go to the 
bakery and borrow a quarter or ask the man if 
he’d take my note for it till next day, that Judith 
Gilfred came into the yard with a girl I’d never 
seen before. I knew at a glance that it must be 
the cousin she’d been expecting from the South. 
She ’s talked about her for a month, and said such 
gushing things that I was prepared to see quite 
a pretty girl, but not the most beautiful one I 
had ever seen in my life. That’s what she is, and 
also my ideal of all that is gracious and lovely and 
sweet. 

She ’s a blonde with the most exquisite hair, the 
color of amber or honey, with little gold crinkles 
in it. And her eyes — well, they make you think 
of clear blue sapphires. I loved her from the mo- 
ment Judith introduced us. Loved her smile, the 
way it lights up her face, and her voice, soft and 
slow, blurring her r’s the way Barby does. From 
her little white-slippered feet to the jewelled van- 


54 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


ity box on a slender chain around her neck, she 
looks exactly as I’d choose to look if I could make 
myself over. Her name is Esther Gilfred. 

Judith must have told her as much about me as 
me about her, for she was so cordial and dear. 
Judith has been my most intimate friend ever 
since I started to school. Esther was so inter- 
ested in the auction. One of her greatest charms 
I think is her enthusiasm for whatever you hap- 
pen to be interested in. She made the picture I 
was carrying around seem doubly desirable, 
just by saying in that indescribably charming way 
of hers that antique frames are quite the rage now. 
There is such a fad for them in her town. 

We must have spent more than half an hour 
poking around among all the queer old things be- 
ing auctioned off, when I heard the honk of an 
automobile horn, which I recognized as Richard’s. 
He was signaling me. He had slowed down as he 
came opposite the place, to see why such a crowd 
was gathered in there, and, as he did so, caught 
sight of us. 

He stopped when I waved to him, and I ran 
out and asked him to loan me a quarter. As he 
fished one out of his pocket, he told me he’d take 
me home if I was ready to go. 

So I ran back to pay for the frame, and ask 
the girls what time they’d be ready to go rowing 


' HER IDEAL GIRL STEPS IN 


55 


next morning. While Judith was answering, Es- 
ther laid her hand on my arm in her enthusiastic 
way and exclaimed in a low tone, ‘‘Who is that 
young Apollo you spoke to ? He has the most gor- 
geous dark eyes I ever saw, and the shoulders of 
an athlete. He’s simply stunning!” 

On the way home I told Richard what Esther 
said about him. He looked so pleased and con- 
scious, that it was funny to watch his face. 

“Which one said it?” he asked. “The little , 
golddocks in blue, or the one under the red para- 
sol?” 

I surely was astonished, for I had no idea that 
Richard was so observing. Heretofore, he hM 
never seemed to notice how girls looked, or what 
they wore. 



CHAPTER V 


A PHOTOGRAPH AND SOME DAY-DREAMS 

I DON^T believe compliments are good for the 
male mind. They go to their heads. Up to this 
time in all the years I’ve known Richard, I’d 
never seen him walk up to a mirror and deliber- 
ately stare at himself, except when we were hav- 
ing a face-making contest, and trying to see which 
conld look the ngliest. 

But the first thing he did after we went into 
the house was to stop in front of the hall mirror 
and square back his shoulders. Then he turned 
and looked at himself, a long, slow glance out of 
the corner of his eyes, and walked away with such 
a satisfied air that I was dying to laugh. All the 
rest of the evening he had a sort of set-up, lordly 
way about him that he had never had before. I 
am sure that it was the effect of Esther’s com- 
pliment. 

Barby asked him to stay to supper, and he did, 
to hear all about her Washington trip. He talked 
to her sort of over my head, as if I were a little 
56 


A PHOTOGRAPH AND DAY-DREAMS 57 


girl who couldn ’t understand the great 'war meas- 
ures \vhich interested him. It amused me im- 
mensely, for every one knows that a girl of six- 
teen is far more mature than a boy of seventeen 
and a half. But I didn^t say anything, just smiled 
to myself as I sat and knit and listened. 

After supper when I brought out the oval frame 
to show the family what a bargain I got for a 
quarter, I had the surprise of my life. Tippy 
recognized the photograph in the frame. She said 
there were probably a dozen like it hanging up in 
various parlors in Wellfleet. It was the picture of 
a minister’s "wife she had kno'wn years ago. “Sis- 
ter Wynne,” everybody called her, whether they 
went to that church or not, because she was so 
■widely beloved. The little boy’s name was John. 

When this little John was just a baby, Brother 
W 3 mne had a call to a big church out West. On 
the way there they came up to Provinceto'wn to 
take the boat, and they stayed all night ^vith 
Grandfather Huntingdon in this very house. 
Tippy was here on a visit at the time, and remem- 
bers it perfectly. Several years later the Wynnes 
had this picture taken to send back to friends in 
their old parish, and let them see how little J ohn 
had grown. Miss Susan Triplett at Wellfleet has 
one. 

It seems too strange for words to think that 


58 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


once upon a time they slept in our big downstairs 
guest chamber in the bed with the bird-o ’-paradise 
valance and the pink silk tester, and that years 
and years afterward I should find their picture 
in a barrel at an auction, and bring it home and 
hang it up in that very room. 

That’s what I did after supper while Richard 
was drawing maps on the margin of the Boston 
Trcmscript, showing Barby where the Allies were 
entrenched. I washed the glass and drove a nail, 
and hung it up over a little serving table between 
the windoAvs. Then I stepped back and held up 
the lamp to see the effect. It seemed to belong 
there, and the little fellow’s big, serious eyes 
looked straight out at me, as if they were saying : 
“Yes, I know you, and I came back on purpose to 
be put into your story.” 

He seemed so real to me that as I went out, 
carrying the lamp, I looked back over my shoul- 
der and whispered, “Good-night, little John 
Wynne.” 

Then I went upstairs to get another skein of 
yarn and wind it on Tippy’s swift. All the time I 
was doing it I kept thinking of the events of the 
afternoon, and how beautiful Esther Gilfred 
looked — ^how adorable she w^as in every way. 
Those lines from Wordsworth came to my mind: 


A PHOTOGRAPH AND DAY-DREAMS 59 


“She was a phantom of delight 
When first she gleamed upon my sight.’’ 

Also she suggested that line “Queen rose of the 
rosebud garden of girls!” Suddenly I thought, 
why not write a poem to her my own self. At 
that, a whole list of lovely words went slipping 
through my mind like beads along a string: 
lily . . . pearl . . . snow-crystal . . . amber . . . 
blue-of-deep-waters . . . blue-of-sapphire-skies 
. . . heart of gold. She makes me think of such 
fair and shining things. 

But it was hard to get started. After trying 
ever so long I concluded to look in the dictionary 
in the list of Christian names for the meaning of 
Esther. I thought that might suggest something 
which would do for a starter. 

When I went back downstairs Richard had fin- 
ished his map drawing. He was lying on the 
leather couch, as he so often does, his eyes closed, 
and his hands clasped under his head, listening 
to Barby play the piano. He certainly did look 
long, stretched out full length that way, longer 
than he had ever seemed before. Maybe Esther’s 
calling my attention to him the way she did made 
me see him in a new light, for, after staring at him 
critically a moment, I had to admit that he really 
was as good-looking as she said he was. 


60 GEORGINA’S SER VICE STARS 

I carried the big dictionary over to the library 
table and opened it under the reading lamp. 
Years ago we had looked up the meaning of our 
names, but I had forgotten what Richard meant 
until my eye chanced on the word, as I glanced 
down the page. I didn’t want to interrupt the 
music, but I couldn’t resist leaning towards him 
and saying in an undertone, just to get a rise out 
of him: 

“Listen to this, ‘Apollo,’ the name Richard 
means ‘strong like a ruler, or powerful.’ That’s 
why you have the ‘ shoulders of an athlete. ’ ’ ’ 

But he didn’t even open his eyes. Just gave an 
indulgent sort of smile, in rather a bored, su- 
perior way that made me want to slap him. It 
was as much as to say that I was carrying coals 
to Newcastle in telling him that. 

“Well,” I said, in Tippy’s own tone, quoting 
what she always tells me when anybody compli- 
ments me in her presence, “ ‘There’s nothing last- 
ing you will find but the treasures of the mind.’ 
So you needn’t be so uppity, mister.” 

He ignored the remark so completely that I de- 
termined not to speak to him again all evening. 
But presently I was forced to on account of the 
interesting fact I found on the next page. It was 
too interesting not to be shared. 

“Beauteous Being,” I remarked in a half whis- 


A PHOTOGEAPH AND DAY-DREAMS 61 


per, “don’t trouble to open those gorgeous dark 
eyes, but listen to this. The name Esther means 
A Star. Isn’t that wonderfully appropriate?” 

His eyes flew open quickly enough at that. He 
turned over on his side and exclaimed in the most 
interested way : 

“Say, I was just thinking what a peach she is, 
but somehow peach didn’t seem the right word. 
But Star — that fits her right down to the ground. ” 

And that from Richard, who never looks at 
girls ! Seeing how interested he was in her I con- 
fided in him that I was trying to write a poem to 
her. That she seemed to be set to music in my 
thoughts, and that she continually reminded me 
of lines of poetry like that one of Tennyson’s: 
“Shine out little head, running over with curls, to 
the flowers, and be their sun.” 

He asked me what that was in. When I told 
him “Maude,” he turned over on his back again 
and shut his eyes, with no more to say. But when 
Barby finished the “Reverie” she was playing and 
he got up to go home, he walked over to the book- 
case and began hunting along the shelves. He al- 
ways helps himself to whatever he wants. When 
he slipped a book into his pocket I looked up in 
dme to see that it was one of the little blue and 
gold volumes of our set of Tennyson. Later I 
found he had carried off the one with “Maude” in 


62 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


it. I have wondered since if he would have taken 
the same interest in Esther if I hadn’t repeated 
her compliment — if it was that which started him. 

Tippy lost no time next morning in hunting up 
the auctioneer and finding whose furniture he was 
selling, and all about it. What he told her sent her 
to Wellfleet on the noon train to talk over old times 
with her cousin Susan Triplett. She came back 
at supper time mth a piece of news wonderfully 
interesting to me. 

Little John Wynne is alive and really is back 
on the Cape. But he’s grown up now, of course. 
He’s a physician. He worked his way through a 
AVestem college and then went to Harvard for his 
medical degree. This summer he is in Yarmouth, 
taking care of old Doctor Rawlins’ practice, while 
he ’s off on a long vacation. 

I was so thrilled over all that Tippy told, that 
on my way up to bed I slipped across the hall for 
another look at the picture which I had rescued. 
It is a pity that “Sister AVynne” died before she 
knew how splendidly he turned out. She would 
have been so proud of him. But she must have 
known that he’d grow up to be the kind of man 
that Miss Susan says he is, because they look so 
much alike — the same steadfast, dependable sort 
of eyes and mouth. 

As I stood there, holding the flickering candle, 


A PHOTOGRAPH AND DAY-DREAMS 63 


with the wax melting and running down its side, 
I thought how wonderful it would be if fate should 
some time bring our paths in life together. There 
are so many ways that might be done. He might 
be called here in consultation any day. Dr. Raw- 
lins often is. Or he might come up here to spend 
a week-end as hundreds of people do, because the 
town is quaint and has historic associations. I 
wondered if I’d recognize him from his likeness to 
this baby picture or to his mother, if I should hap- 
pen to meet him suddenly — say going into the 
post-office or strolling along the wharf. I felt 
sure something would tell me that it might be he. 

Then I began imagining the most dramatic 
scene, just as if I were reading it in a novel of 
which I was the heroine. I would be taking part 
in an entertainment at the Town Hall, giving the 
Fire-fly dance maybe, first with the spot-light fol- 
lowing me, and then vdth hall and stage darkened 
to give that wonderful fire-fly effect, and all the 
tiny points of electric lights hidden in my costume 
flashing on and off. And he would be watching 
out there in the darkness, from the front row, 
watching intently every graceful move. 

Then all at once something would go wrong 
behind the scenes. A cloud of fire and smoke 
would suddenly sweep across the stage, shutting 
me off from escape and almost suffocating me. 


64 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


There would be a moment of awful silence while 
the audience gazed transfixed with horror. Then 
out of the darkness lie would leap forth, tearing 
off his coat as he sprang up on the stage to wrap 
it around my filmy dress, already aflame, and I 
would fall unconscious in his arms, overcome by 
the smoke. 

Long hours afterward when I opened my eyes, 
his face would be bending anxiously over me, and 
I’d smile wanly up at him, and he’d say in a chok- 
ing whisper, ‘ ^ Thank heaven, she lives ! ” I would 
be lying in this dowmstairs guest chamber instead 
of my own room, this being handier, and presently 
he’d see this picture of himself hanging on the 
wall. Then — ^well, suffice it to say, it would lead 
finally to a beautiful and touching scene like the 
one I saw at the movies Wednesday afternoon, in 
the last act of “The Harvest Moon.” 

After I went upstairs that night, I thought of 
still another way for us to mefet, which I shall 
write down because it would make a good scene in 
a novel, and I am beginning to think I shall start 
another one soon instead of “Divided,” which 
now seems amateurish and childish to me. This 
is the scene. 

I would be a beautiful Red Cross nurse, serving 
with the Allies somewhere in France. Into the 
ward, where I was keeping vigil some night, would 


A PHOTOGRAPH AND DAY-DREAMS 65 


be brought a wounded officer, a member of the 
medical corps who had risked his life giving aid 
to the dying in the trenches. He would be too 
badly hurt for me to recognize him at first, till I 
found his mother’s picture over his heart, and 
my calling his name would bring him back to con- 
sciousness. 

“How did you find me?” he would murmur 
feebly. “How did you know?” And I’d say, 
“Because, far away across the seas in my old 
home on Cape Cod, hangs the picture of ‘little 
John AVynne,’ as he used to be. My guardian 
angel led me hither.” 

“You . . . are my . . . angel, ” he would whis- 
per, and relapse into unconsciousness. I could 
make it awfully effective to have him die, after 
I’d nursed him tenderly for weeks, but I can’t bear 
to. I’d rather have it end the way I’d want it to 
end in real life if I should really meet him on a 
foreign battle-field. 

Probably, though, if I ever do meet him, it’ll be 
just my luck to be coming in from blue-berrying 
the way I was last week with a bee-sting on my 
lip that swelled it up till I was a sight for the 
gods. 

Oh, if we could only make things happen actu- 
ally the way we can in our day-dreams, what a 
thrilling thing Life would be from start to finish! 


CHAPTER VI 


THE ONE AND ONLY STAB 

“Fair as a star, when only one 
Is shining in the sky.’’ 

That’s Esther. She has been here two weeks, 
and all that time I’ve been trying to write a poem 
to her which would do her justice. It is impos- 
sible. So, since coming across the above line from 
Wordsworth, I’ve simply called her “Star” and 
given up trying. She likes to have me call her 
that. 

She is so wonderful that it is a privilege just 
to be in the same town with her. Merely to feel 
when I wake in the morning that I may see her 
some time during the day makes life so rich, so 
full, so beautiful! How I long to be like her in 
every way ! Since that cannot be I try to live each 
hour in a way that is good for my character, so as 
to make myself as worthy as possible of her 
friendship. For instance, I dust the hind legs of 
the piano and the backs of the picture frames as 
66 


THE ONE AND ONLY STAR 


67 


conscientiously as the parts that show. I work 
overtime on my music instead of skipping practice 
hours as I have sometimes done in the past. The 
most unpleasant tasks I go through gladly, feeling 
that the rubbing of such, although disagreeable, 
puts a shine on one’s soul in the same way that a 
buffer polishes the nails. 

At first Richard laughed at what he called my 
infatuation, and said it didn’t pay to tpke Emer- 
son’s advice and ‘‘hitch your wagon to a star.” 
You have to jerk along at such a rattling gait to 
keep up that it soon wears out an ordinary mortal. 
But before he realized what had happened to him 
his wagon was hitched as firmly as mine, and to 
the same star. 

Esther loves to motor, so he takes her for a 
long drive every day when his cousin James 
doesn’t want the machine. As he furnishes his 
own gasoline for such pleasure trips, he hasn’t 
saved very much of his wages since she’s been 
here, to put in his “Going abroad” fund. 

Every time I go to the Gilfred’s, Esther passes 
me a freshly opened box of candy. All the boys 
send it to her, but twice in the last week I’ve been 
sure it was from Richard. The first one had a 
card lying on top that she turned around for me 
to read. No name — just a pencilled line — “Queen 
Rose of the rose-bud garden of girls.” But I 


68 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


know Richard’s handwriting as well as I know my 
own. Besides he learned that very quotation from 
me. The next time the card was printed instead 
of written, but there was a pansy drawn in the 
corner, and the sentence was in French. 

Esther asked me to read it. She said she was 
so rusty in her French she wasn’t sure she had 
translated it correctly. It said “Pansies are for 
thought.” Then I remembered the pansy bed out 
by the Gilf reds’ side porch. Richard had a big 
purple one in his button-hole the other day when 
he came back from there. But that was no proof, 
of course, because I’d seen George Woodson with 
one, and also Truman Long. Truman draws al- 
most as well as Richard and is always making 
marginal sketches on things, but Truman never 
took any of the languages but dead ones. 

But later on when Esther said she and Richard 
were going to read some fables together to help 
her brush up her French, I was pretty sure he 
had sent that second box. I was altogether sure 
when he came over the second time with that same 
pansy in his buttonhole, so dry and dead it was 
all shriveled up. I knew just how he felt about it, 
that it was too sacred to throw away. I feel the 
same way about whatever her fingers touch. So 
just to let him know that I understood and sym- 
pathized like a real sister I picked up Barby’s 


THE ONE AND ONLY STAR 


69 


guitar and in an off-hand sort of way began to 
sing an old song of hers that he knows quite as 
well as I do. 

“Only a pansy blossom, only a withered flower, 
Yet to me far dearer than all in earth ^s fair 
bower.’’ 

I hadn’t the faintest intention of teasing him, 
but he seemed to take it that way. He got as red 
as fire and shrugged his shoulders impatiently 
and strode out of the room as if he were pro- 
voked. It seems so' queer to think of him having 
any sentiment in connection with a girl, when he ’s 
always been so indifferent towards them. Still, 
Esther is so star-like, so high above all other gins 
that I don’t wonder that even he has yielded to 
her magic influence. 

All the boys are crazy about her. George Wood- 
son spends most of his waking hours there. He 
sits around in the hammock with his ukelele, wait- 
ing for her to come out, and if they have an 
engagement and go off and leave him, he just sits 
and waits for them to come back. Truman Long 
has composed a serenade dedicated to her that’s 
really awfully sweet, and when they dance at the 
Gilf reds’ of an evening the boys break in so con- 
tinually that Esther doesn’t get to dance around 


70 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


the room without changing partners. It must be 
heavenly to be so popular. 

Babe Nolan has a sentence copied in her mem- 
ory book which she says is a test of whether one 
is truly in love or not. She thinks it is from Emer- 
son. “When a single tone of one voice can make 
the heart beat, and the most trivial circumstance 
associated with one form is put in the amber of 
memory. When we become all eye when one is 
present and all memory when one is gone.” 

She says she was all eye when she used to be 
with the One who wrote those letters which are 
now in that bedpost somewhere in tlie Salvation 
Army or the White Mountains, and she was all 
memory when he was gone. And if it happened 
that it was his voice which answered when she 
called up the grocery where he clerked, she was 
all of a flutter, and couldn’t remember whether 
her mother told her to order starch or stove polish. 
I wonder if I shall ever know that blissful sen- 
sation. 

According to Babe’s test I am sure of the last 
two items in Richard’s case. He certainly is all 
eye when Esther is present, and the most trifling 
thing she says or does is cherished in the amber 
of his memory. I can tell from the way he keeps 
coming back to them in a round-about way with- 
out mentioning her name. 


THE ONE AND ONLY STAR 


71 


Barby has noticed the difference in him, too. 
He doesn’t come to the house as often as usual for 
one thing, and he talks about something besides 
war. He doesn’t mention Esther’s name to 
Barby, but he brings up subjects connected with 
her that he’s never been interested in before. 
Things they’ve discussed at the Gilf reds’, such as 
the difference between Southern and Northern 
girls, and what constitutes charm in a woman, and 
why angels are always painted with golden hair 
and nobody ever thinks of there being brunette 
angels with snappy dark eyes. 

When I told Barby he was helping Esther brush 
up her French, she gave a funny sort of a groan, 
and said, “Of all the arrows in the little god’s 
quiver that is the deadliest. ” When I asked what 
arrow, she said, “Conjugating a familiar verb in 

a foreign tongue with a ” Then she broke 

off suddenly and asked what kind of a girl I 
thought Esther really was. She said if she were 
the right kind it would do Richard Avorlds of good 
to be interested in her, but she couldn’t bear to 
think of the dear boy being disillusioned this 
early, or having his confidence in woman-kind 
shaken by a shallow little flirt. 

I told her that shallowness and coquetry Avere 
not to be mentioned in the same breath Avith 
Esther. That while Richard’s a nice boy, and 


72 GEOR GINA SERVICE STARS 

feeling towards him as I do, as if he were a real 
brother, I want him to have the very best things 
Life can give him, I don’t consider him fine enough 
and noble enough for such an angel as Esther. 
With her lofty ideals only a Sir Galahad or King 
Arthur himself is worthy of her. 

Barby has met her several times, but only when 
there were a lot of others present. She had no 
chance to talk with her and see what a truly fine 
and strong character she has. She could see only 
in a general way that she is lovely and gracious. 
So, not knowing her as I know her, she reminded 
me again of that old prism of mine and the way I 
used to go about with it in front of my eyes, put- 
ting rainbows around everything in sight. 

She asked if I was sure I wasn’t looking at 
Esther in some such way, putting a halo of per- 
fection around her that was largely of my own 
making. She said she did that twice w^hen she 
was in her early teens. Once it was a music 
teacher she was infatuated with, and once her 
roommate at boarding school. She looked upon 
them as perfect, and nearly died of disappoint- 
ment when she discovered they were only ordinary 
mortals. 

It hurt me dreadfully to have her think my 
adoration of Esther w^as nothing but a schoolgirl 
infatuation. She must have seen how I felt and 


THE ONE AND ONLY STAR 


73 


she must have changed her mind about Esther, 
for lately she has been perfectly lovely about en- 
couraging our intimacy. She says she’d like for 
me to invite her to the house often, and that I 
may have her here for a week after her visit with 
Judith is over. And she suggested several things 
we might do for her entertainment, such as a 
picnic at Highland Light, and a motor-boat trip 
over to the weirs to see the nets hauled in. 

An age has gone by since I wrote of the above 
plans. There has been no chance to carry them 
out, because the very next day Mrs. Gilfred went 
to Boston and took Judith and Esther with her 
for a week. Ever since they left I’ve gone around 
hununing : 


“What’s this dull town to me? 

Robin’s not here.” 

Only I change it to “My Star is not here.” 

The only thing that makes the loneliness bear- 
able is that Barby has a guest, a Miss Helen 
Crewes, who is a Red Cross nurse. She is going 
to Flanders very soon, and she is up here rest- 
ing. She gives “First Aid” lessons to Barby, 
Tippy and me in the evenings. 

Tuesday when the Busy Bees met here she put 


74 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 

on her uniform and went down and talked to the 
girls. She seemed so wonderful and so set apart, 
all in white with the Red Cross blazing on her 
forehead, and she talked so inspiringly that the 
girls were ready to rise up and follow her to the 
death. They didnT want to go home when the 
time came, but hung around begging her to tell 
some more. And Minnie Waite said that if any- 
body in town would start a Melting Pot like the 
one Miss Crewes told about to put your jewels in 
for the cause, she’d throw in her gold thimble and 
her locket and her silver friendship bracelet that 
needs only one more link to complete it. 

Barby hasn’t invited any of our friends to meet 
Miss Crewes yet, because she’s just off a hard 
case that nearly wore her out. She says she must 
store up every bit of strength she can get from 
the dunes and the sea, for what lies ahead. So 
she sits down on the beach hours at a time, and 
goes on long walks by herself. When I take her 
out in the boat she scarcely says a word. But 
in the evenings while she’s teaching us first aid 
bandaging, etc., she talks so thrillingly of her ex- 
periences and what her friends are doing over 
there that I could listen all night. 

Barby made several attempts to get Richard to 
come over and meet her, but he hasn’t been near 
here since Esther went to Boston. He always 


THE ONE AND ONLY STAR 


75 


makes some excuse when Barby telephones. 
Barby says it would do him good to meet a woman 
like Miss Crewes. That she’d wake him up out of 
the trance he is in, and rekindle his old enthusi- 
asms. Miss Crewes is middle-aged, for she’s at 
least thirty-eight, and she’s very plain, except 
when she talks. Then her face lights up till you 
feel as if a lamp had suddenly been brought into 
the room. 

I know now what Barby meant by trance. It 
is the same thing as being ‘^all memory when one 
is gone. ’ ’ Yesterday Babe Nolan and I were walk- 
ing along the street together, she eating an apple, 
when Richard drove by without seeing us. It was 
up along in one of the narrowest turns, where he 
had to pass so close to the board walk that the 
machine nearly grazed it. Yet he went by, per- 
fectly unconscious of us. Never looked to the 
right nor the left, and never even heard when I 
called to him. Usually he is on the look-out to 
wave his hand to anybody he knows. When he 
had gone by Babe said : 

‘‘That boy doesn’t know whether he’s in the 
body or out of the body. Somebody ought to tell 
him about Esther Gilfred. It’s a shame to let 
him go on that way making a goose of himself.” 

“Tell him what about her?” I demanded. 

“Oh, that it’s all a bluff about her brushing up 


76 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


her French. She doesn’t know enough French to 
brush. All she does is to hold the dictionary while 
he reads. She can’t even find the words by her- 
self half the time. Besides she’s years older than 
he is, although she passes for the same age. And 
worse yet — she’s engaged.” 

I was so furious that I contradicted her hotly, 
but she just looked at me over the apple she was 
biting into, with the calm, unruffled gaze of an 
old Aztec. Babe can be the most provoking per- 
son at times that ever lived. She prides herself 
on having a mathematical mind, and being exact 
about facts and figures. The worst of it is she 
usually is, and will go any length to prove she’s 
right. Although I know in this case she must be 
mistaken, it worries me in spite of myself. 

She said that one day at the Gilf reds’ they were 
laughing over some old photographs of Esther 
and J udith, taken when they were babies. On the 
back of one was written: ‘‘This is our little 
Esther at the age of six months and six days.” 
It was signed with her father ’s name and the date. 
Esther snatched it away and tore it up before 
anyone else saw it, but. Babe says, counting up 
from that date to this, Esther is all of three years 
older than Richard. She is twenty and a half. 

And she said that twice while she and Viola 
were visiting in Yarmouth, their Aunt Rachel 


THE ONE AND ONT.Y STAR 


77 


took them to a hop in Barnstable. Both times 
Esther, who was visiting in Barnstable then, was 
there with the man she’s engaged to. He’s a 
doctor. They met at a house-party when he was 
a medical student at Harvard and she was at a 
finishing school near Boston. Her aunt told 
Babe’s aunt all about it. They’ve been engaged 
nearly a year, but Esther won’t have it announced 
because she says it would spoil her good times 
wherever she goes. She’d never make any more 
conquests. He’s so busy establishing his practice 
that he can’t pay her the attention and give her 
the things that the other men do. 

When Babe told me that I felt as if the solid 
ground were giving away under my feet. She 
seemed perfectly sure that what she was telling 
was the straight, unvarnished truth. And yet, I 
cannot, I will not believe that Esther would stoop 
to deceit in the smallest matter. She is the soul 
of honor. She couldnH be sacredly betrothed to 
one man and then go on acting exactly as if she 
wasn’t, with another. Besides, I heard her say 
one day that she is just Judith’s age, which is 
seventeen, and another time that she was “heart 
whole and fancy free.” 

When I triumphantly quoted that last to Babe 
to prove she was wrong she swallowed another 
bite of apple and then said, “Well, a coquette 


78 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STA RS 

might be all that and at the same time engaged. 
And she is engaged, and I can prove it. ’ ’ 

All I could trust myself to say was, ^‘Babe 
Nolan, your remarks are perfectly insulting. I’ll 
thank you to remember you’re talking about my 
very best friend and the very finest and sweetest 
girl I’ve ever known in my whole life.” 

With that I drew myself up in my most freezing 
manner and walked off and left her. I’ve wished 
since that I’d thought in time to hurl that quota- 
tion from Shakespeare over my shoulder at her, 
but I didn’t think of it till I was nearly home : 

“Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, 
Thou shalt not escape calumny.” 

Those statements of Babe’s were nothing but 
out and out calumny. 



CHAPTER Vn 


A MODERN SIR GARETH 

Yesterday morning, just to oblige me, Miss 
Crewes put on her Red Cross uniform and went 
out in the garden with me to let me take some 
snapshots of her. Barby came out to watch us, 
sitting on the stone bench under the apple tree, 
with her knitting. I was using my last film, pos- 
ing Miss Crewes among the hollyhocks by the 
garden wall, when we heard a machine drive up 
and stop out in front. The next minute Richard 
came dashing around the corner of the house, 
bareheaded, and calling Barby in such a breath- 
less way that I knew he had exciting news from 
the front. 

Then he caught sight of her under the apple- 
tree, and came striding across the grass to her, 
his head up and his face fairly shining. As we 
walked over towards them we caught parts of his 
sentences, “It’s Dad — all banged up and in the 
hospital. One of the bravest things — so proud of 
him — ^it chokes me.” 


79 


80 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


He didn’t even see us when we joined them, 
for he had pulled a handful of letters out of his 
pocket, and was shuffling them over to find the one 
that brought the news. A comrade of Mr. More- 
land’s had written it and his nurse added a post- 
script. No one thought to introduce Miss Crewes 
and he never seemed to notice a stranger was 
present till he finished reading. And then there 
didn’t seem to be any need of an introduction. 
She just held out her hand with tears in her eyes 
and that wonderful light in her face which comes 
when she talks of sacrifice and heroism, and he 
gripped it as if they were old friends. 

That’s what they’ve seemed to be ever since. 
I think the sight of that red cross blazing on her 
uniform waked him up to the fact that she is con- 
nected in a way with the same cause his father is 
suffering for now in the hospital, and that she 
would be in sympathy with his desire to get into 
the service, and possibly might be able to help 
him. He couldn’t stay then, because his Cousin 
James was in the machine out in front, waiting 
for him. But he promised to come back later, 
said there were a hundred questions he wanted to 
ask her. 

It seems strange that, in the midst of hearing 
such a big vital piece of news about a real hero, 
I should notice a trifle like the following. When 


A MODERN SIR GARETH 


81 


Richard took the handful of letters from his 
pocket and began shuffling through them to find 
the one from France, I saw without being con- 
scious that I was staring at them, that they were 
all strangely familiar — square and pale blue. In 
his excitement he dropped one, and there on the 
flap of the envelope were the two long slim silver 
initials that I know so well, “ E. G. ” I had several 
notes written on that same silver and blue sta- 
tionery before Esther went to Boston, though 
none since. 

I wasn’t conscious of counting them as he 
passed them from hand to hand, but I must have 
done so automatically, for I seem to remember 
as far as five, and that it was the sixth one he 
dropped. He was so absorbed in the news that 
he didn’t realize he was making a public display 
of Esther ’s letters, though of course nobody could 
recognize them but me. I think maybe for the 
moment she was so far in the background of his 
thoughts that she lost her importance for him. 

But not so with me. Mingled with a thrill of 
happiness over Richard’s news, was a feeling 
that my faith in Esther had been vindicated. 
She couldnH have written to him six times in 
seven days if she had been sacredly pledged to an- 
other. Babe Nolan is wrong for once in her life, 
and I shall have the joy of telling her so before 


82 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


this week is out. I know I am not putting a rain- 
bow around Esther. It is simply that love gives 
me a clearer vision than the others have — the 
power to see the halo of charm which encircles 
her. 

This has been such a wonderful day that I can’t 
close my eyes imtil I have made a record of it. 
First, I have seen Doctor John Wynne! And 
second, I’ve found out something about him which 
makes me honor and admire him. more than any 
man I know except Father. 

Miss Crewes told us the story, but she didn’t 
intend to tell us his name, nurses being bound to 
respect a confidence. It came out quite by acci- 
dent. She was dreadfully distressed at the slip 
and made us promise we’d never repeat it to a 
soul. It happened this way: 

Richard had the machine to do as he pleased 
with today, Mr. Milford being out of town, and 
he and Barby arranged a little picnic for Miss 
Crewes. He’s taken the greatest fancy to her. 
We started out soon after breakfast and drove 
for hours through the perfectly heavenly summer 
morning, stopping at each little village along the 
Cape as we came to it, to tack up some posters. 
They were posters different artists had painted 


A MODERN SIR GARETH 


83 


for that French Relief entertainment, which has 
been postponed so many times. 

At lunch time we stopped by the side of the 
road in the shade of a pine grove, so close to the 
water that we could see the blue shining through 
the trees. It was such a fascinating, restful spot 
that we sat there a long time after we finished our 
lunch. 

Richard stretched out full length on the pine 
needles wuth his hat over his eyes, and the rest 
of us took out our knitting. I knew he was think- 
ing of Esther, for presently he brought up a sub- 
ject which we have discussed several times at the 
Gilfreds^ which she was particularly interested 
in. It’s whether the days of chivalry are dead 
or not, and if men were not nobler in the days of 
King Arthur, when they rode forth to deeds of 
prowess and to redress wrongs, than they are 
now when their highest thought is making money 
or playing golf. 

Esther always took the side that nobody nowa- 
days measures up to the knights of the Round 
Table, and that she Avished she could have lived 
Avhen life was picturesque and romantic instead 
of in these prosaic times. I think what she said 
rather rankled in Richard’s mind, because I’ve 
heard him refer to it several times. Naturally I 
sided with Esther, for her arguments seemed 


84 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


unanswerable. Today I quoted some of them} 

That is what led to Miss Crewes telling one of 
her experiences. She was red-hot for the other 
side, and said I might name any deed of chivalry 
mentioned in the “Idylls of the King,” and she 
could match it by something equally fine, done in 
this day of the world, by some man she was per- 
sonally acquainted with. 

Instantly I thought of the story of “Gareth and 
Lynette,” for that is one that Esther and George 
Woodson had the biggest argument over. The 
part where Gareth saves the baron’s life, and 
when asked what reward he would have — *‘What 
guerdon will ye?” — answers, ^^None! For the 
deed^s sake have I done the deed.” 

Esther once said she thought that was one of 
the noblest sentences in all literature. As soon 
as I quoted it Richard raised himself on one 
elbow and then sat up straight. He could see by 
Miss Crewes’ face that she had a story worth 
telling. 

“For the deed’s sake have I done the deed,” 
she repeated to herself as if searching through 
her memory. Then after a moment she said tri- 
umphantly, “Yes, I have a Sir Gareth to more 
than match yours. He is a young physician just 
beginning to make good in his practise, and he’s 
had a far harder apprenticeship to win his pro- 


A MODERN SIR GARETH 


85 


fessional spurs than ever Gareth served, as scul- 
lion in the King’s kitchen.” 

Of course, it being a nurse’s confidential expe- 
rience, she had to tell the story in the most imper- 
sonal way, like the censored war reports that be- 
gin “Somewhere in France.” She began it: 

“Somewhere in a little seaport where I was 
resting one summer,” and we didn’t know till she 
finished it that it was Yarmouth she was talking 
about, and that it was this summer it happened, 
only two weeks ago, and that she was talking 
about the last case she nursed, the one that ex- 
hausted her so. She wouldn ’t have taken it, as she 
had given up regular nursing and was taking a 
vacation before going abroad in the Red Cross 
service, but the doctor was a good friend of hers 
and seemed to think it was a life and death matter 
to have her help in such a critical case. 

The patient was a fine-looking young fellow, not 
much more than a boy, although they found out 
later he had a wife and baby down in New Jersey. 
All they knew about him was that he had been in 
that neighborhood about three months, as agent 
for an insurance company, and was taken ill in 
the house where he was boarding. It was typhoid 
fever and a desperate case from the beginning. 
The first night they discovered why. It came out 
in his delirium, in broken sentences. 


86 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


He had been using the company’s money, hold- 
ing back the premiums in some way. Of course 
he always expected to replace the amounts in a 
short time, but his speculations were unfortunate 
and he had not succeeded in doing so when he was 
taken ill. And now he was in an agony of fear, 
tortured by the thought of exposure and disgrace. 
His ravings were something pitiful. He kept 
starting up in bed, thinking the detectives were 
after him, and begging them not to arrest him — 
to give him one more chance. 

He had a lucid interval next morning when the 
doctor questioned him and he made a full con- 
fession. There was no one he could apply to for 
help. His own people had nothing, and the 
thought of his wife finding out his dishonesty 
almost crazed him. Miss Crewes said it was one 
of the most harrowing experiences she ever lived 
through. There was no place for her to go but 
out on the tiny balcony. She stepped through the 
window and sat on the railing out of sight of the 
bed, but she couldn’t help hearing. The way she 
told it made us feel that we were right there with 
her, watching the doctor’s face, and reading in it 
as she did the struggle going on in his mind. He 
was turned so he could not see her, but she could 
see every expression that crossed his face. 

This stranger had no claim on him whatsoever. 


A MODERN SIR GARETH 


87 


He had gotten into trouble through extravagance 
and a fast life, while what the doctor had man- 
aged to save after putting himself through school 
had been earned by the hardest work and most 
frugal living. It would take all his savings to 
replace the stolen funds, and he had been piling 
it up, bit by bit, for a cherished purpose of his 
own. AVhy should he sacrifice it for this careless 
young fellow, who by his own confession had never 
denied himself anything? And yet, to stand back 
and see him go dovm that path abhorred of all 
men to exposure and public disgrace probably 
would take away his one chance of recovery. 

For a long time the doctor sat there, looking 
past the restless form on the white bed to the 
sky-line of the little town that showed through 
the open window. It was a hard decision for 
him to make. Finally he said cheerfully : 

“It’s all right, old chap. Don’t worry about it 
any more. I’ll stand between you and trouble. 
I’ll send my check to the company for you this 
very day.” 

Then the boy broke dovm again, and his relief 
and gratitude were almost as distressing as his 
fear had been. AVell, he died after all, though they 
worked to the utmost to save him. There Avere 
some complications. And it was all so pitiful, the 
little wife’s coming on with the baby to be with 


88 GEOKGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


him those last few days, and her frantic imploring 
of them to save him, when they were already doing 
everything in human power. And the funeral 
and everything, and her going back home Avith his 
body. The one thing she clung to — the only thing 
that comforted her — was the thought of his good- 
ness and nobility of character, and that she must 
live to bring up her little son to be worthy of his 
father ^s memory. 

She went away never knowing what she had 
been spared. The doctor didn’t have even her 
gratitude to reward him, because she didn’t know 
what he had done. And nobody will ever know 
but Miss Crewes how much he gave to wipe out a 
stranger’s dishonor and let him die with his repu- 
tation unstained. Not that he ever mentioned the 
matter to Miss Crewes. All she knew was what 
she couldn’t help overhearing. But, being old 
friends, he had told her in the beginning of the 
summer why he was working so hard and living 
so frugally. He was engaged to the loveliest girl 
in Christendom, and expected to marry her as 
soon as his bank account reached the place where 
he could give her the things she was accustomed 
to having. 

‘‘And so you see,” said Miss Crewes in ending 
the story, “there was no possible ‘guerdon’ for 


A MODERN SIR GARETH 89 

liim. It was done solely, purely, for the deed’s 
sake. ’ ’ 

“I’d like to know that chap,” said Richard 
thoughtfully. Then for a moment or two there 
\vas a deep silence. It was broken by the sound 
of a noisy little automobile rattling down the 
road. As it came nearer Miss Crewes recognized 
it and started to her feet in surprise. “Well, 
this is the most remarkable coincidence that ever 
was!” she exclaimed. “There he is this blessed 
minute!” 

If the man had driven on by we wouldn’t have 
known his name, and probably might never have 
discovered it. But the surprise of seeing him 
made her forget that she was disclosing the iden- 
tity of the hero of her story. At sight of her he 
stopped his car, got out and came over to where 
we were sitting, to speak to her. After a cordial 
greeting she introduced him to us. And he ivas 
Doctor John Wynne. 

My heart beat so hard that I was sure every- 
body must hear it. To meet in this unexpected 
fashion by the roadside when I had been picturing 
all sorts of romantic ways! And yet it wasn’t a 
bit strange that he should happen by, for Ave were 
only a c«uple of miles out of Yarmouth, and his 
calls were liable to bring him along that road 
almost any hour of the day or night. 


90 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


He is an older looking man than I imagined him 
to be. He has that keen X-ray gaze that doctors 
have when they’re asking you your symptoms, and 
I was afraid that he’d know just by looking at me 
how hard my heart was beating, and that I’d 
made up all those romantic day-dreams about him. 
My guilty conscience made my face burn like fire. 
I looked away every time he glanced at me. I’d 
never really expected to have him appear so un- 
expectedly. Fortunately he stayed only a few 
minutes and then was off again in a cloud of dust. 

Richard stood and looked after him till he was 
out of sight and then said slowly, “There’s noth- 
ing picturesque about a rickety second-hand ma- 
chine like that, and nothing heroic looking about 
an ordinary village doctor, but when it comes to a 
choice between them and one of your old guys in 
armor, it’s me for the modern knight every time.” 

Not till then did it dawn on Miss Crewes that 
she had unwittingly betrayed a confidence. Then 
she felt perfectly awful about it, and said so much 
that we swore over and over we’d never repeat 
what she told us, under any circumstance. 

But I’m glad she did let it slip. So glad I 
know that “little John Wynne” grew up to be 
that kind of a man. I wonder if the “loveliest 
girl in Christendom” is worthy of him. If she 
appreciates him as he deserves. 


CHAPTER VIII 


DISILLUSIONED 

Many times since making that promise to Miss 
Crewes I have wished I could take it back. I’d 
give a fortune to tell just one person in this world 
what Dr. Wynne did, but Barby says no. Miss 
Crewes has sailed and I can’t reach her for weeks 
to get her permission, and under the circumstances 
I’d not be justified in breaking my promise. I 
must keep my word. But I almost know it would 
right a great wrong if I could tell, and it almost 
breaks my heart not to be able to do it. The 
way of it is this. 

The French Relief entertainment took place 
last Saturday night, after being postponed four 
times, and I did the Spanish dance in my lovely 
green and gold costume. Esther got back Satur- 
day morning, just in time for it. I was too busy 
to go over to see her, but she telephoned that she 
would be at the entertainment, and that I must 
look my prettiest. Some of her Yarmouth friends 
were coming. The posters had attracted people 
from all over the Cape. 

91 


92 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


My heart sang for joy all the rest of the day. 
Everybody says that I am at my best in that 
Spanish dance and look my best in that costume, 
and naturally if one is to do any shining one 
wants one’s best beloved there to see it. 

Babe Nolan was behind the scenes with me be- 
fore the performance began. Jim and Viola •were 
both on the program, and she was there to help 
them make up and prompt them if they forgot. It 
was the first chance I had to mention those letters 
of Esther to her, and I took advantage of it a 
few minutes before the curtain went up. 

Of course I didn’t tell her it was Richard whom 
I saw with the six letters Avritten in the seven 
days of Esther’s absence. I just mentioned the 
fact that I had seen them and added, “So, of 
course, she couldn’t be engaged to that doctor she 
danced with in Barnstable.” 

Babe was standing with one eye glued to a peep- 
hole in the curtain, trying to see who was in the 
audience. She never turned her head but just 
kept on looking with one eye, and said in that flat, 
cocksure way of hers, “Well, that doesn’t prove 
anything.” 

It made me so mad I didn’t know what to do. 
It wasn’t what she said s© much as the way she 
said it that was so odious. There have been a 
few times in my life when I’ve been sorry that I 


DISILLUSIONED 


93 


was born a Huntingdon with the family manners 
to live up to, and this was one of them. Before I 
could think of an answer she added in that calm, 
I ’11-prove-it-to-you-voice : 

“She’s doAvn there with him right now, in the 
third row, next to the middle aisle, on the left.” 

Then she stepped aside for me to put my eye 
to the peep-hole, and for one giddy instant I 
thought I was going to faint. The shock of the 
surprise was so great. There sat Esther looking 
like a dream and the man with her was Doctor 
John Wynne. So she was the “loveliest girl in 
Christendom” whom he was working and waiting 
for, and whom he’d have to go on working and 
waiting for no telling how long, because he had 
acted the part of a true knight, helping an un- 
fortunate stranger who had no claim on him what- 
soever. When Babe talked about the doctor who 
was attentive to Esther, I took it for granted he 
was a Barnstable man. It never occurred to me 
that he had gone from Yarmouth to see her. 

My head was in such a whirl that I was thank- 
ful the orchestra struck up just then, and we had 
to scurry to seats in the wing before the curtain 
Avent up. My dance didn’t come till near the last, 
so I had plenty of time to think it all over. My 
first and greatest feeling after the tremendous 
surprise was one of gladness for both of them. 


94 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


It seemed too good to be true that my ideal girl 
and my ideal man should have found each other 
— should belong to each other. It is exactly what 
I could have wished for each of them. But a 
little doubt kept raising its head like a tiny snake 
in a rose-bower. If she were really engaged to 
him how could she be writing daily to Richard, 
those long fat letters, and carrying on vdth him 
in that fascinating, flirtatious, little way of hers 
that keeps him simply out of his head about her ? 

My mind went round and round in that same 
circle of questions like a squirrel in a cage, never 
getting anywhere, till all of a sudden my name 
was called. It was my time to go on the stage 
and I had forgotten my steps — forgotten every- 
thing. For a second I was as cold as ice. But at 
the first notes of the fandango my castanets 
seemed to click of their own accord, and I glided 
on to the stage feeling as light as a bubble and 
as live as a flash of fire. I was dancing for those 
two down there in the third row, next to the 
middle aisle. I would do my best, and not a doubt 
should cloud my belief in my beautiful Star. 

After the performance they were among the 
first to come up and congratulate me. This time 
I could meet his gaze fearlessly, and I saw his 
eyes were just like the little boy’s in the picture. 
They hadn’t changed a bit, but looked out on the 


DISILLUSIONED 


95 


world as if they trusted everybody in it and every- 
body could trust him. When he put Esther’s 
scarf around her shoulders he did it in such a 
masterful, taking-care-of-her sort of way, and she 
looked up at him so understandingly that I real- 
ized Babe Nolan was right about their caring for 
each other. 

I could hardly go to sleep that night for think- 
ing about them. I felt as if I had stepped into a 
real live story where I actually knew and loved 
both hero and heroine, and was personally inter- 
ested in everything that happened to them. I 
didn’t think of Richard’s part in it. 

And now — oh how can I tell what followed, or 
how it began? I scarcely know how the change 
came about, or how it started — ^that 

‘‘little rift within the lute, 

That by and by will make the music mute, 

And ever widening, slowly silence all.” 

Maybe Darby’s suggestion that I was seeing 
Esther through a prism started me to looking at 
her more critically. And Babe Nolan’s state- 
ments dropped with such calm precision every 
time we met, stuck in my memory like barbed 
arrows with poison on them. I had been mis- 
taken in one thing, why not in others? 


96 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


At first I made excuses for everything. When 
Esther counted the pile of photographs given her 
by the different boys who have rushed her this 
summer, and said she would have plenty of scalps 
to show when she went back home, I thought it 
was just as Judith had said. It wasn’t because 
she was a born flirt that she made each boy think 
his picture was the only one she cared for.- They 
all did that way back in her home town. She was 
brought up to think that was part of the game. 

But if she were really engaged to Doctor 
Wynne, as Judith admitted when I asked her, 
then she had no business to treat Richard as she 
did. It wasn’t fair to him to lead him on so far 
and to accept so much from him, and it wasn’t 
fair to Dr. Wynne. 

But Judith said, “For the land sakes, Esther 
wasn’t ready to settle down to any one person yet. 
Besides, Richard was too young for her to take 
him seriously, and John Wynne was too deadly 
in earnest for a girl like Esther. He Avas too 
intense. He couldn’t understand a little butterfly 
like her whose only thought was to have a good 
time. She’d be utterly miserable tied for life to 
a man like him, who put duty ahead of her and 
her pleasure. It would probably end in her mar- 
rying one of the men back home that she’d been 
engaged to off and on ever since she was fifteen. 


DISILLUSIONED 


97 


She said of course it would make things dread- 
fully uncomfortable when it came to breaking her 
engagement with John Wynne, because he was so 
horribly in earnest that he considered her actu- 
ally his. It was a mistake to let the affair go so 
far. When I asked how about Richard, Judith 
just shrugged her shoulders and said it wasn’t 
to be wondered at that Esther should have a little 
summer affair with him, such a good-looking boy 
and so entertaining, with that lovely car at his 
disposal. 

Just then Esther came downstairs in a soft 
white dress, beaded in crystal, looking like such 
an angel with the lamplight falling on her amber 
hair and sweet upturned face, that all my old faith 
in her came back in a rush. “The loveliest girl 
in Christendom.” No wonder he called her that. 

It Avas then that I first thought, oh, if I could 
only tell her the story that Miss Crewes told us, 
of that knightly deed her John Wynne did with- 
out any hope of guerdon, she wouldn’t want to 
break tryst with him. But I couldn’t tell then. 
I had given my promise. 

The next week-end he came up to ProvincetoAvn 
again. He was to stay all night at the hotel and 
take Esther down to Chatham next day to a house- 
party. Some old school friends of hers were giv- 
ing it. But he went back without her. When 


98 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


she found he had come for her in the same shabby 
little old automobile that he had last Spring when 
she was in Barnstable, she refused to go with him. 
Said she’d be ashamed to have the girls know 
he drove such an old rattletrap, and that he’d 
promised her last Spring — at least halfway prom- 
ised her — ^that he ’d get a new one in time for this 
house-party, so that he could join them sometimes 
and take them on picnics. 

He explained to her that he had fully intended 
to do so, but that something came up lately which 
made it impossible. He wouldn’t tell her what, 
although she coaxed and pouted. He just stuck 
to it doggedly that it was something he couldn’t 
talk about. Somebody needed his help and he felt 
forced to give it. Then he grew stern and told 
her that she must believe him when he said the 
sacrifice was necessary, and forgive him if he 
couldn’t humor her wishes. 

It was Judith who told me about it. She said 
that Esther has always queened it over every- 
body, and is so used to being considered first in 
everything that she wouldn’t stand for his put- 
ting some old charity patient ahead of her wishes 
and her comfort. She just gave him his ring back 
and he went home that night. 

I wanted to cry out that I knew the reason. 
That I could tell her something that should make 


DISILLUSIONED 


99 


her proud to be seen in that shabby old machine, 
because of the gallant sacrifice it stood for. But 
my lips were sealed by my promise. 

Only once before in my whole life have I ever 
had such a gone-to-pieces feeling. That was when 
our old gardener, J eremy Clapp sneezed his teeth 
into the fire. I was so little then I didn’t know 
that teeth could be false, and when I saw all of 
his fly out of his mouth I thought he was com- 
ing apart right before my eyes. The shock was 
so awful I screamed myself almost into spasms. 
My faith in everything seemed crumbling. I felt 
the same way this time. 

I had been so sure of Esther, so absolutely sure 
of her high standards of honor, that the slightest 
flaw in her was harder to forgive than a crime in 
a less shining soul. And now to think that she 
had cruelly hurt and disappointed the man who, 
to me, was the knightliest of all men, was more 
than I could bear. I felt I could never take an- 
other person on trust as long as I lived. I wished 
I could have died before I found out that she 
wasn’t all I believed her to be. 

Barby had guests when I reached home. I 
could hear their voices as I paused an instant on 
the front door-step. I knew that if I tried to slip 
up the stairs she ’d see me and caU me to come in, 
so I tip-toed across the hall into the big down- 


100 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


stairs guest chamber, and threw myself on the 
couch by the open window. I was too miserable 
to face anybody. Too miserable even for tears. 

But the tears came presently when I looked up 
and caught sight of the picture that I had res- 
cued at the auction, “little John Wynne,” leaning 
against his mother’s shoulder, looking out on the 
world so trustingly from that safe refuge. As I 
looked at the curl her fingers had brushed so care- 
fully into shape, and the curve of the baby lips 
that had never known anything but truth, I just 
couldn’t bear to think of him growing up to be 
deceived and disappointed. I had to admit that 
Esther wasn’t w^orthy of him, but I recalled the 
way he looked at her as he put her scarf around 
her that night, and I felt that if he still "wanted 
her as much as he did then, I wanted him to have 
her. It didn’t seem fair for her not to be told 
about his Sir Gareth sacrifice. I believe I cried 
more for his disappointment than for my own, as 
I pictured his blighted future, although mine 
seemed empty enough, goodness knows. I wished 
I was old enough to be a trained nurse and go to 
Flanders right away. 

It was almost dark when the guests left. I had 
cried myself into a blinding headache. I hadn’t 
intended to tell Barby, but slie happened to glance 
in as she passed the door, and, seeing me face 


DISILLUSIONED 


101 


downward on the couch, came in with an excla- 
mation of surprise, and before I knew it the whole 
miserable story was out. Then I was glad I told, 
for she was so sweet and comforting as she sat 
and stroked my forehead with her cool fingers. 
Some of the ache went away as she talked. It 
helped a lot to knoAV that she had gone through 
the same kind of an experience. Everyone does, 
she said, “in their salad days.’’ One can’t ex- 
pect to be an expert at reading character then. 

But she insisted that I mustn’t tell Esther about 
the typhoid fever patient. She said it wouldn’t 
help matters. That John Wynne had been look- 
ing through a prism too. He saw her pretty, 
fascinating, gracious ways and imagined her per- 
fect as I had done. He hadn’t seen what a shal- 
low little creature she really is, vain and selfish. 
It was better for his disillusionment to come now 
than later. 

“But how is one ever to be sure?” I wailed. 
“There was Richard and Doctor Wynne and me, 
all three of us mistaken. She was like a star to 
each of us. I called her ‘Star.’ It seemed the 
most beautiful name in the world and I thought 
it fitted her perfectly.” 

“Don’t be too hard on her,” Barby said. “It 
was your mistake in taking her measure, and 
giving her a misfit name. Remember how many 


102 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


mistakes the prince made before he found a per- 
fect fit for Cinderella’s slipper. But cheer up! 
You’ll find some one worthy of the name some 
day.” 

I didn’t want to cheer up, so I just closed my 
eyes, and Bar by, seeing that I didn’t wish to talk, 
went on rubbing the headache away in silence. 
When I opened them again it was tAvdlight, so I 
must have dozed off for a while. Barby was sit- 
ting across the room in the window-seat, her elbow 
on the sill. Her dress glinmiered white. Beyond 
her, through the open casement, glowed the steady 
harbor lights and the winking red eye of the Wood 
End lighthouse. I went over to her and leaned 
out into the sweet-smelling summer dusk. It 
made me feel better just to sniff that delightful 
mingling of sea salt and garden fragrances. 

* ‘ Look up, ’ ’ said Barby. ‘ ‘ Did you ever see the 
stars so bright? I’ve been sitting here taking a 
world of comfort out of them. It’s good to feel 
that no matter what else goes wrong they keep 
right on, absolutely true to their orbits and their 
service of shining; so unfailingly true that the 
mariner can always steer his course by them. 
And Georgina — you don’t believe it possible now, 
but I want you to take my word for it — there are 
people in the world like that — there are friend- 


DISILLUSIONED 103 

ships like that — there is love like that — just as 
dependable as the stars! 

She said it in a way I can never forget. It 
brought back the old feeling Tippy used to give 
me when she traced my name on my silver chris- 
tening cup, the feeling that it was up to me to 
keep it shining. IVe thought about it quite a lot 
since, but I am all mixed up as to which is the best 
way to do it. Maybe after all it would be more 
star-like of me to renounce my dream of becoming 
a famous author, and go in for duty alone, like 
Miss Crewes. 



CHAPTER IX 


SEVEN MONTHS LATER 

One might think, seeing that I am keeping two 
diaries now, that I am leading a double life. But 
such is not the case. When it was decided that I 
was to go to Washington this year, to the same 
school that Barby attended when she was my 
age, she suggested that I keep a journal, as she 
did while here. She called hers ‘‘Chronicles of 
Harrington Hall.’’ So I am calling mine “The 
Second Book of Chronicles.” Next vacati.m we 
are to read them together. 

Naturally I want to make mine as interesting 
as possible, so I’ve spent considerable time de- 
scribing life here at school as I see it, and mak- 
ing character sketches of the different girls, 
teachers, etc. It would have been more satisfac- 
tory if I could have put all that in my Memoirs, 
thus making one continuous story, but it’s too 
great a task to write it all out twice. So I have 
put a footnote in my Memoirs for the benefit of 
whoever my biographer may be, saying, “For 
104 


SEVEN MONTHS LATER 


105 


what happened at Harrington Hall, see my Book 
of Chronicles.” 

All during the first term I did not make a single 
entry in this old blank book, now open before me. 
It lay out of sight and out of mind in the back of 
my desk. But this morning I came across it while 
looking for something, and tonight I have just 
finished reading it from start to finish. I realize 
I have left quite a gap in the story by failing to 
record several things which happened after 
Esther went home. 

As I sit and re-read these last pages, how far 
away I seem now from that unhappy August 
afternoon when I came home from the Gilfreds’, 
feeling that I could never take anyone on trust 
again. It was days before I got over the misery 
of that experience, and I really believe it was on 
account of the way I went moping around the 
house that Barby decided to send me away to 
school. Father had been urging it for some time, 
but she wanted to keep me at home with her one 
more year. 

It wasn’t the excitement of getting ready to go 
away and trying on all my new clothes that re- 
stored me to my former cheerfulness, although 
Barby thinks so. It was just two little words that 
Richard said the last day he was with us, before 
going back to school. I wouldn’t have believed 


106 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


that a mere exclamation could have brought about 
such an amazing change in my feelings, and I 
still wonder how it did. Next year I’m going to 
study psychology just to find out about such queer 
happenings in our brains. 

We were out in the boat, he and Captain Kidd 
and I, taking a farewell row. He hadn’t men- 
tioned Esther’s name since the day she left, but 
Judith told me he never went back to the house 
after he found out the double game she had been 
playing. Remembering how infatuated he’d been 
I knew he must have felt almost as broken up as 
Babe says John Wynne was. I kept hoping he’d 
bring up the subject. I thought it would make it 
easier for him if he would confide in one who had 
known the same adoration and disappointment. 
Besides I brooded over it all the time. It was all 
I thought about. 

So on the way back I sat in pensive silence, 
trailing my hand languidly over the side of the 
boat through the water. Richard talked now and 
then, but of trivial things that could not possibly 
interest one communing with a secret sorrow, so 
I said nothing in reply. VGien we were almost 
at the pier he rested on the oars and let the boat 
drift, while we sat and listened to the waves tum- 
bling up against the breakwater. 

As we paused thus in the gathering dusk, a 


SEVEN MONTHS LATER 


107 


verse came to me that seemed a fitting expression 
of the sad twilight time as well as both my mood 
and his. For his face looked sad as he sat there 
gazing out to sea, sad and almost stern. So I 
repeated it softly and so feelingly that the tears 
sprang to my eyes, and there was a little catch in 
niy voice at the last line: 

“Break, break, break. 

At the foot of thy crags, 0 sea. 

But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me. ’ ’ 

I had expected some sort of sympathetic re- 
sponse, at least an eloquent silence, for he knew 
I meant Esther, and it was like a dash of cold 
water to hear him exclaim in an exasperated sort 
of way, ^‘Oh ratsT^ 

Captain Kidd took the exclamation to himself, 
and barked till he nearly fell out of the boat. 
And Richard laughed and rolled him over on the 
seat and asked him what he meant by making 
such a fuss about nothing. That was no way for 
a good sport to do. Then he began pulling for 
the landing with all his might. 

Considering that I had just bared to him one 
of the most sacred emotions of my heart, his an- 
swer seemed as unfeeling as it was rude and in- 


1G8 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


appropriate, something I could never forgive nor 
forget. He couldn’t help seeing that I was hurt 
and indignant, for I ran up the beach ahead of 
him and only answered in monosyllables when 
he called after me, pretending nothing had hap- 
pened. 

But later when I was upstairs brushing my 
hair, I heard him down in the dining-room, teas- 
ing Tippy and telling her what he wanted for his 
farewell supper, in that jolly, audacious way of 
his that makes a joke of everything. I knew per- 
fectly well that he felt blue about going back to 
school and that he was all broken up over the 
affair with Esther, but he was too good a sport 
to show it. 

And that’s what he meant by saying ‘ ‘ Oh rats, ’ ’ 
in such an exasperated way ! He had expected me 
to measure up to his idea of a good sport and I 
hadn’t done it! My brooding over “a day that 
is dead” till it spoiled our enjoyment of the pres- 
ent one, seemed silly and sentimental to him. As 
he told the dog, “that was no way to do.” From 
away back in our pirate-playing days the thought 
that Richard expected a thing of me, always 
spurred me on to do it, from walldng the ridge- 
pole to swinging down the well rope. He ex- 
pected me to be as game and cheerful a chum as 
he is, and here I had spoiled our last boat-ride 


SEVEN MONTHS LATER 


109 


together by relapsing into that moody silence. 

It was as if those two words held a mirror be- 
fore my eyes, in which I saw myself as I looked 
to him. “But I’ll show him I can be game,” I 
declared between my teeth, and as soon as I had 
tied the ribbon on my hair I ran downstairs, de- 
termined to make that last evening the jolliest one 
we had ever had. 

I am so thankful that we did have such a gay 
time, for now that things can never be the same 
again, he will have it to look back on and remem- 
ber happily. He went away next morning, but I 
did not leave until nearly two weeks later. It 
was the day before I started to Washington that 
I heard the news which changed things. 

I was down in the post-ofifice, sending a money 
order, when Mr. Bart, the famous portrait 
painter, came in. Some other artist-looking man 
followed him in, and I heard him say as he caught 
up with him: 

“Bart, have you heard the news about More- 
land? He’s reported killed in action. No par- 
ticulars yet, but it goes vdthout saying that when 
he went, he went bravely.” 

Mr. Bart started as if he had been hit, and said 
something I didn’t quite catch about dear old 
I)ick, the most lovable man he ever knew. All the 
time the clerk was filling my money-order blank 


110 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


tliey stood there at the same window, talking about 
him and the winters they had spent together in 
Paris, their studios all in the same building, and 
how they’d never want to go back there now with 
so many of the old crowd gone. They said all 
sorts of nice things about Mr. Moreland. But 
not till one of them asked, “Where’s the boy 
now?” did I realize the awfulness of what I had 
just heard. It was Richard's father they were 
talking about, and he was dead. 

But I couldn’t really believe that it was true 
until I got home and found Barby at the tele- 
phone. Mr. Milford had just called her up to tell 
her about it. And she was saying yes, she thought 
he ought to go to Richard at once by all means. 
He would feel so utterly desolate and alone in the 
world, for his father had been everything to him. 
Now that his Aunt Letty was dead he had no rela- 
tives left except Mr. Milford. She’d go herself 
if she thought she could be any comfort to the 
dear boy. 

Mr. Milford said he’d catch the Dorothy Brad- 
ford within an hour, and he’d convey her mes- 
sages. And that’s the last I heard for ever so 
long. I wanted to write to Richard, but I just 
couldn’t. There wasn’t any way of telling him 
how sorry I was. But that night I scribbled a 
postscript at the end of Barby ’s letter to him, and 


SEVEN MONTHS LATER 


111 


signed it, “Your loving sister, Georgina.” I 
wanted him to feel that he still had somebody who 
thought of him as their really own, and as belong- 
ing to the family. 

I had been here at school over two weeks before 
any news came about him. Then Barby wrote 
that Mr. Milford was back, and had told her that 
they had a trying interview. Richard was more 
determined than ever to get into the war. He 
kept saying, “IVe got to go. Cousin James. 
There’s a double reason now, don’t you see, with 
Dad to be avenged? I’m not asking you to ad- 
vance any of my money. All I want is your con- 
sent as my guardian. They won’t let me in with- 
out that.” 

Richard can’t get the money his Aunt Letty 
left him till he is twenty-one. It’s in trust. But 
he’ll have a lot then, and there ought to be con- 
siderable when his father’s affairs are settled. 
But because Mr. Moreland had said that Richard 
was too young to go now and must keep on in 
school, Mr. Milford feels it is his duty to be firm 
and carry out his cousin’s wishes. But he told 
Barby he came away feeling that with the boy in 
that frantic frame of mind, school would do him 
no more good than it would a young lion. A 
caged and wounded one at that. 

The next news of him was that he had disap- 


112 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


peared from the school and his Cousin James 
couldn’t find a trace of him. About that time the 
expressman left a big flat box for Barby with a 
note inside that said, “Take care of this for me, 
please. If I shouldn’t come back I’d like for you 
and Georgina to have it. Dad thought it was the 
best thing he ever did.” 

In the box was the portrait that Mr. Moreland 
painted of Richard the first summer he came to 
Provincetown, called, “The thoughts of Youth are 
long, long thoughts. ’ ’ It has been given first place 
in every art exhibition in which it has been hung, 
and, besides being a wonderful piece of painting, 
is the darlingest portrait of Richard as he was at 
the age of ten that one could imagine. 

It was not until after Thanksgiving that I heard 
directly from him myself. Then I had a note 
from him, written up in Canada. He said, “I 
know you won’t give me away, Georgina, even to 
Barby. She might feel it w^as her duty to tell 
Cousin James where I am. I couldn’t enlist, even 
up here without his consent, but I’ve found a way 
that I can do my bit and make every lick count. 
I’m at the front, by proxy, and more. So I am 
satisfied. I haven’t much time to write but that’s 
no reason I wouldn’t appreciate all the home news 
available. If you have any on hand just pass it 
along to yours truly who will be duly grateful. ” 


SEVEN MONTHS LATER 


113 


I was wild to know what he was doing, and 
exactly what he meant by being at the front “b}^ 
proxy and more.” But, although I wrote regu- 
larly after that and underscored the question each 
time, he never paid any attention to that part of 
my letters. I could see he was purposely ignor- 
ing it. I would have ignored his questions, just 
to get even, if they hadn’t showed so plainly how 
hungry he was for news of us all. Remembering 
that he is all alone in the world now, since he and 
his Cousin James are at outs, and that I am the 
only one of his home folks who knows his where- 
abouts, I make my letters as entertaining as pos- 
sible. 

Sometimes Babe Nolan, who is at this school, 
rooming just across the hall, hands over her 
brother Jim’s letters. The spelling is awful and 
his grammar a disgrace, but he certainly has a 
nose for news. He tells about everybody in town 
from the Selectmen to the Portuguese fishermen. 
Babe never wants the letters back, so I send them 
on to Richard, also the Provincetown Advocate, 
which Tippy mails me every week as soon as she 
is done reading it. 

Hardly had I written the above when my room- 
mate, Lillian Locke, came in. Being a Congress- 
man’s daughter, she is allowed to spend a lot of 
her spare time with her family, who are living 


114 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


at a hotel. She had been out all afternoon with 
them, consequently had not received her pile of 
letters which came in the last mail. The elevator 
boy gave them to her as she came up. One of 
mine had been put in with hers by mistake. That 
is why I didn’t get it earlier. I was surprised to 
see that it was from Barby, because I had one 
from her only this morning. Late as it is I’ll 
have to sit up and add a few more lines to this 
record, for it’s all about Richard and fits right in 
here. 

Mr. Milford finally got track of him in some 
way and followed him to Canada. He has just 
returned. He found Richard working in what had 
once been an automobile factory. It is now turn- 
ing out aeroplanes for the Canadian government. 

One of the first persons Richard met when he 
reached the town was a workman in this factory 
who was eager to go to the front, but couldn’t for 
two reasons. He was badly needed in the factory, 
and he had a family dependent on his wages, two 
little children and a half-blind mother. His wife 
is dead. When Richard found he couldn’t enlist, 
big and strong as he is, without swearing falsely 
as to his age, he went to the man and offered to 
take his place both in the factory and as a bread- 
winner for his family. 

It was the foreman who told Mr. Milford about 


SEVEN MONTHS LATER 


115 


it. He said there was no resisting a boy like him. 
He was in such dead earnest and such a likable 
sort of a lad. He walked into everybody’s good 
graces from the start. They took him on trial 
and he went to work as if every blow was aimed 
at a Hun. When the man saw that he actually 
meant business and wanted it put down in black 
and white that he would look after the family left 
behind, the matter was arranged in short order. 

And now Richard feels that not only is there a 
man on the firing line who wouldn’t be there but 
for him, but every day as he fashions some part 
of the aircraft, he is doing a man’s work in help- 
ing to win the war. The foreman^ said, “He’s the 
kind that won’t be satisfied till he knows every- 
thing about airships there is to know,” and Mr. 
Milford said he didn’t feel that he was justified 
in opposing him any longer. A job like the one 
he had undertaken would do him more good than 
all the colleges in the country. 

Dovm at the bottom of the letter Barby said, 
“I have written all this to Miss Crewes, that she 
may have another Sir Gareth to add to her list 
of knightly souls who do their deed and ask no 
guerdon. ’ ’ 


CHAPTER X 


AT HARRINGTON HALL 

The other day Miss Everett, the English 
teacher, took a book away from Jessica Archibald. 
She said it wasn’t suitable for a girl in her teens. 
It was too sentimental and romantic. Jess didn’t 
mind it very much, for she is one of the worship- 
pers at Miss Everett’s shrine. When a bunch of 
girls are so devoted to a person that they’ll go 
to her room and take the hairs out of her comb 
to put in their lockets or their memory books, 
that is the limit. I don’t see how any novel ever 
written could beat that for being sentimental. 

But Babe Nolan doesn’t agree with me. She 
never does. She said, “Look at the old Romans. 
Didn’t I remember in Anthony over Caesar’s dead 
body: 

“Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, and dying, 
mention it within their wills, bequeathing it 
as a rich legacy.” 


116 


AT HARRINGTON HALL 


117 


But Babe admits that Jessica is disgustingly 
sentimental. They are room-mates. And Babe 
says how any gro^vn person can be the blind bat 
that Jess’s mother is, is a mystery to her. Mrs. 
Archibald told Miss Everett that her little daugh- 
ter is “an unawakened child as yet, just a shy, 
budding, white violet,” and she wants to keep her 
so till she’s through school. She says Jessica has 
always been totally indifferent to boys, never 
gives them a thought, and she doesn’t want her 
to until she is grown and Prince Charming arrives 
on the scene. She’s just fifteen now. 

And all the time. Babe says, shy little Jessica 
is having the worst kind of a case with one of the 
Military Academy cadets, who started up an ac- 
quaintance with her one day on the street-car, 
behind the chaperone’s back. She’s slipped off 
and gone alone to movies several times to meet 
him, when she was supposed to be taking tea with 
her aunt. Yet she looks up in such an innocent, 
vdde-eyed way, and seems so shocked when such 
escapades are mentioned, that you wouldn’t sus- 
pect her any more than you would a little gray 
kitten. But it’s making her dreadfully deceitful. 

Babe came up to our room to talk to Lillian 
and me about it, for she’s really worried over 
those clandestine meetings. She says the whole 
trouble is that Jess doesn’t know boys as they 


118 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


exist in the flesh. She knows only the demi-gods 
created by her own imagination. She has been 
brought up on fairy-tales in which princes often 
go around disguised as swine-herds, and, not hav- 
ing any brothers which would give her the key 
to. the whole species, she doesn’t know a swine- 
herd when she meets him. 

Babe told her no real prince would ask any- 
thing clandestine, and that this cadet she ’s moon- 
ing around about is only an overgrown schoolboy 
with a weak chin and a bad complexion, and if 
she could see him as he really is and as he looks 
to the rest of us girls, it would cure her of her 
romantic infatuation. And Babe told her, more- 
over, that no real prince would pretend to be a 
poet when he wasn’t, and that the verses he sent 
her were not original as she fondly believed, wear- 
ing them around inside her middy blouse. Babe 
couldn’t remember just what poem they were 
taken from, but said they were as well known to 
the public as “Casey at the bat.” She is so blunt 
that w^hen she begins handing out plain truths she 
never stops for anyone’s feelings. 

Babe says that if she ever marries and is left a 
widow in poor circumstances, she will support 
herself by starting a Correspondence School in a 
branch that will do more good than all the cur- 
riculums of all the colleges. It will be a sort of 


AT HAERINGTON HALL 


119 


Geography of Life, teaching maps and boundaries 
of the United State” and general information to 
fit one for entering it. She said we shouldn’t be 
left to stumble into it, in blindfold ignorance like 
Jessica’s. 

Right there I couldn’t resist breaking in to say, 
“Oh, speaking of a correspondence course. Babe, 
did you ever find that brass-balled bedstead you 
were looking for at the auction?” 

Of course the question had no significance for 
Lillian, but it pointedly reminded Babe of the 
correspondence she had with the One for whom 
she was once all eyes when he was present, and all 
memory when he was gone. She’s entirely over 
that foolisiiness now, but she turned as red as 
fire, just the same, and to keep Lillian from no- 
ticing, she turned to the bureau and began talk- 
ing about the first thing she looked at. 

It happened to be a photograph of Lillian’s 
brother, Duffield, who is an upper classman at 
Annapolis. Lillian is awfully proud of him, al- 
though from his picture you wouldn’t call him any- 
thing extraordinary. His nose is sort of snub, 
but he has a nice face as if he really might be the 
jolly kind of a big brother that Lillian says he is. 
She’s always quoting him. I’ve heard so much 
about what “Duff thinks” and “Duff used to say 
and do” that I feel that I know him as well 


120 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


as if we^d been brought up in the same house. 

So when she began singing his praises again, 
declaring that Duffield wouldnT ask a girl to meet 
him clandestinely and he wouldn’t have any re- 
spect for one who wanted to, I withdrew from 
the conversation. It was time for me to go on 
copying the theme which Babe’s entrance had 
interrupted. 

She must have been responsive enough to have 
pleased even Lillian, for when next I was con- 
scious of what thev were saying, Lillian was in- 
cluding Babe in the invitation she had given me 
some time ago, to go along with them next time 
her mother motored dovm to Annapolis to see 
Duff. They’re going down to a hop in April, 
which is only a few days off now, and again in 
June week, and stay at John Carrol Hall. Mrs. 
Locke has already written to Barby, inviting me, 
and Barby has given her permission. 

Mrs. Locke is from Kentucky, and knows all 
the Shirleys. She always introduces me as “the 
granddaughter of our illustrious editor, you 
know.” In that way I’ve met a lot of Barby ’s 
old friends when I’ve been invited to take dinner 
at the hotel with Lillian. That accounts also for 
my being included in their invitation to an in- 
formal musicale at the White House where I met 
the President and his wife. (See Book of 


AT HARRINGTON HALL 


121 


Chronicles for six pages describing that grand 
occasion.) 

Of all the legacies in the world, nothing is more 
desirable for children to inherit than old friend- 
ships. One day when Mrs. Locke took Lillian 
and me shopping with her, we met a lady in one 
of the stores whom she introduced as Mrs. Wal- 
don. No sooner had she been told who I am than 
she held out both hands to me, saying in the dear- 
est way, “Not Barby Shirley’s daughter, and 
half a head taller than I ! Why, my dear, I was 
at your mother’s wedding, and it seems only yes- 
terday. Our families have been neighbors for 
three generations, so you see we inherited our 
friendship, and now here you come, walking into 
the same heritage.” 

She insisted on taking us home to lunch with 
her. Mrs. Locke had another engagement, but 
Lillian and I went. She has the dearest apart- 
ment, on the top floor with a stairway running up 
to a little roof garden. Her husband served in 
the Civil War and was a general in the Cuban war, 
and two of her daughters have recently married 
naval officers. They were living in Annapolis 
when that happened, so she knows all about the 
place. Her other daughter. Miss Catherine, 
has just come back from a visit down there, and 
she told us so much about the place and the good 


122 GEORGINA \S SERVICE STARS 


times she has there that we are simply wild to go. 
I can hardly wait for the time to come. 

We have just come to our rooms from the Cur- 
rent Events class. If it wasn^t for Miss Allen’s 
little lecture every Friday afternoon, revievdng 
the happenings of the week, we’d hardly know 
what is going on outside of the school premises. 
We rarely see the papers, and it is as sweet and 
peaceful as a cloister, here at the Hall, with its 
high-hedged park around it. We forget, some- 
times, the awful suffering and horrors that have 
been shocking the world for nearly two years. 
Our lessons and recreations and friendships fill 
our days to the brim, and crowd the other things 
out. While we’re digging into our mathematics 
or playing basketball vdth all our might, if we 
think of war at all, it’s in the back of our heads, 
like the memory of a bad dream. 

But when Miss Allen tells us of some new 
horror as she did today, of the torpedoing of the 
Sussex, crowded with passengers and many 
Americans aboard, then we realize we are living 
on the edge of a smouldering volcano, which may 
burst into action any moment. It doesn’t seem 
possible that our country can keep out of it much 
longer. I know Father thinks so. His letters 
are few and far between because he’s so very 


AT HARRINGTON HALL 


123 


busy, but there’s always that same note of warn- 
ing running through them. 

“Make the most of this year at school, Georgina. 
Nobody knows what is coming. So get all you 
can out of it in the way of preparation to meet 
the time of testing that lies ahead for all of us.” 

After one of those letters I go at my lessons 
harder than ever, and the little school happenings, 
its games and rivalries and achievements, seem 
too trivial for words. I keep measuring them by 
Father and his work, and what Richard is doing 
so splendidly up there in Canada, and I wish there 
was something I could do to make them as proud 
of me as I am of them. If the family would only 
consent to my going in for a nurse’s training! 
I’m going to talk Barby into letting me stop 
school this vacation, and beginning this fall to 
fit myself for Red Cross service. 

When Richard found that Mr. Milford had told 
us about him being the temporary head of a fam- 
ily, he began mentioning his proteges now and 
then in a joking way. But two snapshots which 
he sent of them told more than all his brief de- 
scriptions. The one labelled “Granny” shows 
more than just a patient-faced little woman knit- 
ting in the doorway. The glimpse of cottage be- 
hind her and the neat door-yard in front shows 
that he has something to go back to every night 


124 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


that has a real touch of home about it. He boards 
there, so that he can keep an eye on the boys. 
One is five, the other seven. He said he had to 
give the older one, Cuthbert, a fatherly spanking 
one day, but it didn ’t seem to make any difference 
in the kid’s feeling towards him. 

They seem to be very fond of each other, judg- 
ing from the second snapshot, labelled “Uncle 
Dick and his acrobats.” The two boys were 
climbing up on his shoulders like little monkeys, 
all three in overalls and aU grinning as if they 
enjoyed it. It seems too queer for words to think 
of Richard being dignified and settled down 
enough for anybody to look up to him as author- 
ity. But the sights he sees are enough to make 
him old and grave beyond his years. He has Avrit- 
ten several times of going to the station to help 
with a train-load of soldiers returned from the 
front. They are constantly coming back, crip- 
pled and blinded and maimed in all sorts of ways. 
He says that sights like that make him desperate 
to get a whack at the ones who did it. He’ll soon 
be in shape to do something worth while, for he’s 
learning to fly, so he can test the machines they 
are making. 

Lillian looked at the acrobat picture rather 
sniffily when it came. I think she took him for 
just an ordinary mechanic in his working clothes. 


AT HARRINGTON HALL 


125 


But when I told her what a Sir Gareth deed he is 
doing her indifference changed almost to hero- 
worship. She^s so temperamental. Not long ago 
he sent another picture of himself, a large one, 
in the act of seating himself in the plane, ready 
for flight. She wanted to know if she had any- 
thing I ’d be willing to trade with her for it. She ’d 
gladly give me one of Duff in place of it. 

It put me in rather an awkward position for I 
didn’t want Duffield’s picture, and I most cer- 
tainly didn’t want her to have Richard’s. 



CHAPTER XI 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 

It is all in my Book of Chronicles, written ont 
for Barby to read, how we motored down to An- 
napolis in the fresh April sunshine, and what we 
wore and what we did. But it is only in this 
‘‘inmost sanctum’’ of these pages that “my 
tongue can utter the thoughts that arose in me.” 

Mrs. Waldon was mth us, as enthusiastic as a 
girl over going back to her old home, and she 
kept us amused most of the way with her reminis- 
cences of different midshipmen, especially the 
two who married her daughters. But in between 
times my thoughts kept wandering forward un- 
easily to the hop, in spite of the reassuring knowl- 
edge of a lovely new coral-pink party dress, 
stowed away in the suitcase under my feet, and 
I couldn ’t help feeling a bit nervous over the com- 
ing event. 

It would be the first dance I had ever gone to 
among strangers, and I kept thinking, “Suppose 
I’d be a wall-flower!” Then, too, I was a trifle 
126 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 


127 


agitated over the prospect of seeing Mr. Tucker 
again, the most congenial man I had ever met. 
Naturally I wanted to meet him again, but I 
shrank from doing so, certain that the sight of 
me would recall to his mind that humiliating affair 
of the borrowed slippers and my old Mary- Jane 
pumps. I was wild to know if he still remembered 
me, or if he had forgotten “both the incident and 
the little girP’ as Barby predicted he would. Be- 
sides I wanted him to see how mature I had grown 
since then — ^how boarding school broadened and 
developed my views of life. 

I made up several little opening speeches on the 
way down, but couldn’t decide which to use. 
Wliether to assume a rather indifferent air with a 
tinge of hauteur, or to be frankly and girlishly 
glad to see him, and ignore the past. 

I was still debating the question in my mind 
when we drove into “little old Crabtown” as Mrs. 
Waldon calls Annapolis. She asked the chauffeur 
to drive by the house where she used to live, so 
she could point out the place where the midship- 
men used to swarm in for their favorite “eats” 
whenever they could get away from the Academy, 
and where she and her girls and their guests had 
those funny “guinea-hen teas” that she’d been 
telling us about. 

While we were drawn up by the curb in front 


128 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


of the house, a big, blond boy in midshipman 
uniform, swinging past at a lively gait, stopped 
and saluted, the surprise on his face spreading 
into a vast grin as he recognized Mrs. Waldon. 
The next instant he was on the running board, 
shaking hands with her, and they began talking a 
dialect none of us could understand, about ‘‘drag- 
ging” and “queens” and “ Jinmiy-legs.” The 
regular Midshipman “lingo” she explained after- 
ward when she had introduced him to us in ordi- 
nary English. He was Mac Gordon, a sort of a 
cousin of hers from out West. 

The conversation that we couldn’t understand 
was nothing but that she was asking him if he 
intended taking a girl to the dance, and telling 
him that we would be there, and asking if the 
same old guards were at the gates, because she 
intended to take us over the Academy grounds 
next day and hoped someone she knew would be 
detailed to escort us. I could see right then and 
there that Mac was making up his mind to give 
Lillian a good time, from the way he kept look- 
ing at her, sort of bashfully, through his eye- 
lashes. 

Well, I needn’t have worried about anything. 
I had “crossed my bridge before I got to it,” as 
Uncle Darcy often says, when I was fearing I’d 
be a wall flower. I had the first dance with Duf- 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 


129 


field, and the moment the band struck np I went 
into it, feeling as I did that night in the Spanish 
fandango. After that my card filled np so fast 
that I had to split dances. Mac Gordon was 
among the first, and Bailey Burrell, who once 
spent a summer in Provincetown, so long ago 
that I’d nearly forgotten him. But he remem- 
bered lots of things about me; the first time he 
ever saw me, for instance, dressed up at a bazaar 
as “A Little Maid of Long Ago.” He even told 
how I was dressed, with a poke bonnet trimmed in 
rosebuds over my curls, sitting in a little rocking 
chair on a table. And he remembered about his 
sister Peggy breaking my prism. She’s cured of 
her lameness now, and is grown up to be a very 
pretty girl, Bailey said. He promised to bring 
her picture around to the hotel next day. 

He and Duffield Avere so entertaining, that as I 
talked and danced with them, suddenly Mr. Tucker 
and his opinions ceased to interest me any more. 
When he came hurrying up to speak to me and to 
ask for a dance, it was the strangest thing — his 
personality seemed to have changed since last 
summer. I looked up to him then as being quite 
intellectual and fascinating, but, seeing him now 
with Duffield and Bailey and Bob Mayfield, he 
seemed really rather insignificant. They called 
him “Watty,” and that expresses him exactly. 


130 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


But Babe seemed to find him very entertaining, 
and they danced together a lot. Good old Babe, 
so homely and so plain. Her nose was shiney and 
her hair straggling and her dress all sagging 
crooked before she’d been at it an hour. But she 
was having a beautiful time, and there’s not a bit 
of jealousy in her nature. She came up to me 
once to ask for a pin and whispered, “Georgina, 
you’re perfectly wonderful tonight — all sparkle 
and glow.” 

It made me very happy, for Babe’s compliments 
are few and far between. She is more apt to speak 
of your bad points than your good ones, and to be 
moved to say anything like that meant a lot from 
her. When I took her over to Mrs. Waldon to get 
some pins out of her “chaperone bag,” because I 
didn’t have any and she needed nearly a dozen, I 
heard Mrs. Waldon and Mrs. Locke saying nice 
things about me in an undertone, that made me 
think of that little line in “The Battle of Water- 
loo,” about “cheeks that blushed with praise of 
their own loveliness.” 

It seemed to me that if the band would only 
keep on playing I could float on and on forever 
to the music. Oh, it’s so wonderful to be a- tingle 
to the very finger-tips with the joy of just being 
alive — radiantly alive! To have all eyes follow- 
ing you admiringly as if you were a flower sway- 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 


131 


ing on its stem! Oh I know this sounds conceited, 
written out in black and white in plain daylight, 
but that night as they played the strains of 
‘‘Poor Butterfly’’ again and again, I felt to the 
fullest the joy of being a social success, such as 
Esther was. I felt all wings and as if I really 
were — at least inwardly — “all sparkle and glow,” 
I wished that the night need never, never end, 
and the music and the heavenly floating motion 
need never stop. I wonder if a time can ever 
come when I’ll be so old and stiff and feeble like 
Aunt Elspeth, that the strains of “Poor Butter- 
fly” will not give me wings again. How does one 
ever become reconciled to being old? 

Next morning when we went over to the Naval 
Academy none of the boys could get off to accom- 
pany us, but the “Jimmy-legs” detailed to escort 
us was an old acquaintance of Mrs. Waldon’s, and 
she has seen the sights so many times that she is 
as good as a guide-book. Nothing escaped us. I 
could have spent a week in the building where the 
trophy flags are, especially in the room that is 
lined with them, ceiling and all. By the time we 
had seen them, from Commodore Perry’s “Don’t 
give up the ship” down to the Chinese flag cap- 
tured from the Boxers, we were worked up to 
such a pitch of patriotic pride that we wanted to 
go right off and do something ourselves to add a 


132 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


guidon or an ensign to that “long honor roll of 
heroic victories on the high seas.” 

We stayed so long looking at the flags that we 
didn’t have time to go through the chapel before 
lunch, but we did take time to watch the boys a 
few moments as the signal sounded for formation 
and they came marching in every direction to form 
in front of Bancroft Hall. We sat down on some 
benches under the trees to watch them, and they 
did look so fine, marching along with their precise 
military svdng that we girls were wildly enthusi- 
astic about them. I couldn’t understand why 
Mrs. Locke’s eyes filled with tears, till Mrs. 
Waldon said reminiscently: 

“It seems only yesterday that my girls and I 
sat here, watching Oliver and Roy in that same 
line, and now one is on a submarine and the other 
on a destroyer.” 

And then I remembered that out from this 
peaceful spot where the April flowers were spring- 
ing up everywhere and robins hopping across the 
green grass, these boys might have to go right off 
after “June week” into a storm of shot and shell. 
A storm far worse than any that ever rained 
around those tattered old flags we had just been 
looking at, because now there is the added fright- 
fulness of mines and U-boats, and aircraft over- 
head, dropping death from the very skies. And 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 


133 


yet (it’s shocking to confess) last night, while we 
were dancing in the very place where the boys are 
being made strong and fit for such fighting, I 
actually forgot that war is going on. 

I forgot it again when the boys came over after 
lunch to take us back to the Academy to finish 
our sight-seeing. There were five of them, one 
apiece on the way over. But after we got inside 
the grounds Mrs. Locke said she was too tired 
to climb any more stairs, and she’d seen every- 
thing several times before, anyhow. So she and 
Mrs. Waldon found a bench under the trees fac- 
ing the water, where a boat drill was going on, 
and took out their knitting. We stroUed off in 
the direction of the boathouse. 

Presently I noticed that no matter how we 
shifted positions as we went up steps or paused to 
look out of windows, three of the boys always 
came drifting back to me : Duff and Bob Mayfield 
and Bailey. And I wasn’t doing a single thing to 
keep them with me, only laughing at their bright 
remarks and trying to be agreeable in a general 
way, for naturally I wanted them all to like me. 

But all of a sudden I realized that I was having 
the same effect on them that Esther had on the 
boys at home. They were falling aU over them- 
selves to make me like them. It was the queerest 
sensation, that feeling of power that came over 


134 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


me. And, although I didn’t care for one a bit 
more than for the others, I was curious to see 
what would happen if I were to exert that myste- 
rious influence that I seemed to have over each of 
them. I began to feel that maybe I had not been 
fair to Esther in judging her so harshly. Maybe 
she had felt that same way, and drifted into those 
different affairs without thinking of consequences. 

Pretty soon I could see that Duffield was maneu- 
vering to get the other boys out of the way, and 
finally he succeeded after talking in an aside with 
his sister a moment. She immediately developed 
a great interest in an old wooden Indian which 
sits out on the campus on a pedestal. It was once 
a figurehead on the prow of a ship, and is sup- 
posed to be a likeness of the old war-chief 
Tecumpseh. The boys count it as their mascot. 
They decorate it with their colors before a foot- 
ball game and run around it for luck before 
exams, and all that sort of thing. 

Before I realized how it happened. Duff and I 
were walking off towards the chapel alone, and 
all the others were going down to watch Babe and 
Lillian run around old Tecumpseh for luck. It 
was nearly an hour before they joined us. We 
strolled around inside the chapel and read the 
tablets put up in memory of the heroes who had 
once been merely boyish midshipmen like the one 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 


135 


heside me. One had lost his life in some Asiatic 
(expedition among savages. It was awfully inter- 
esting to me, seeing it for the first time, but Duf- 
field kept interrupting my thrills to talk about 
personal matters. 

By this time I felt as if I had known him all 
my life, for Lillian’s daily reminiscences of him 
had done more to make me acquainted with him 
than years of occasional meetings could have 
done. So it didn’t seem as startling as it would 
have been otherwise when he suddenly became 
very personal. We were sitting in one of the seats 
back under the gallery. The few tourists wan- 
dering about were up near the chancel, whisper- 
ing together and looking up at the memorial win- 
dows. We talked almost in whispers, too, of 
course, being in this shrine of heroes as well as a 
place of worship, and that in itself gave a more 
intimate tone to our conversation. 

Duffield told me that he lilted me better than 
any girl he ever met in his life. That he felt he 
had known me for years, for Lillian quoted me 
so often both in her letters and visits. And he 
wanted me to promise to correspond with him, 
and to give him my picture to put in the back of 
his watch, so’s he’ll have it with him when he 
goes off on his long cruise this summer. Of 
course I wouldn’t promise. I told him I didn’t 


136 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


know him well enough, but he wouldn’t give up, 
and we kept on arguing about it for a long time, 
in a half -joking, half-serious way, till I was almost 
tempted to say I would, just to see what would 
happen. 

Then the others came in, and we all went down 
in the crypt to see the tomb of John Paul Jones. 
And even down there in that solemn place where a 
guard keeps vigil all the time, and the massive 
bronze wreaths and the flags and the silence make 
it so impressive, he edged in between Bailey and 
me and stooped down to whisper laughingly, ‘‘I 
won’t give up the ship. You might as well 
promise.” 

But just at that moment Bailey called my atten- 
tion to the ceiling above the tomb. A map of the 
heavens is painted on it, with aU the constellations 
that the mariners steer their ships by. Looking 
up at those stars set above the last resting place 
of the old Admiral, Barby’s words came back to 
me as if she were right at my elbow : 

‘‘There are people like that — there are friend- 
ships like that — there is love like that — as depend- 
able as the stars. ’ ’ If Esther had been the ‘ ‘ Star ’ ’ 
I thought her she never would have drifted into 
those affiairs with Richard and John Wynne and 
all the others. I think if it hadn’t been for that 
I might have let myself drift a bit, for it certainly 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 


137 


was a temptation to see how much Duffield might 
grow to care for me, although I was sure I could 
never feel any deep and lasting sentiment for him 
— the real Uncle-Darcy-and-Aunt-Elspeth kind. 

While I stood looking up at that map of the 
heavens, with these thoughts chasing through my 
mind. Babe came up and nudged me and told me 
for mercy’s sake to quit star-gazing in a cellar. 
They were all ready and waiting to go. Babe has 
a lot of curiosity. As we started towards the 
stairs she gave me a puzzled look which said as 
plainly as words, ‘‘Now what did you do that 
for?” 

I had stopped to lay my hand on a banner 
bearing the name of the old Admiral’s flag-ship. 
It was a blue one with the name of the ship in 
white — Bonhomme Richard. I could not have 
told her why I did it, had she asked in words, in- 
stead of with her eyes. Even to myself I could 
not explain the impulse, save that the name 
brought a thought of Eichard Moreland, and the 
feeling that what he had done made him, in his 
boyish way, as worthy of bronze wreaths and 
blue banners as any of those whose tablets shone 
in the chapel above. Seeing those tablets and the 
tomb and that map of stars, made my old dreams 
come back, my old longing to do something and 
be something in the world really worth while. I 


138 GEOKGINA’S SEEVICE STABS 


simply couldn’t stand it to go through life and 
not write my name on the world’s memory as it 
was written in the silver of my christening cup. 
Then I wondered what Eichard would think of 
Duffield. 

That evening the same five boys who had been 
with us in the afternoon were lucky enough to 
get off again and come down to the hotel. Duf- 
field and Mrs. Waldon’s cousin were allow^ed to 
come earlier, in time for dinner. Afterwards we 
danced in the parlors and had just as an entranc- 
ing a time as we had the night before, 

“Where Youth and Pleasure meet 

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.” 

Duffield was all that Lillian had bragged he was. 
The more I saw him the better I liked him. He 
was so sweet to her and so dear to his mother and 
so lovely to me, that I began to have a real pang 
at the thought of him going off on that long cruise 
and our never meeting again perhaps, as long as 
we lived. 

I found myself liking him so much better as the 
evening wore on, and discovering so many attrac- 
tive things about him, that I was halfway fright- 
ened. I was afraid that I was doing what Barby 
said — ‘ ‘ putting a rainbow around him. ’ ’ That the 


THE MIDSHIPMAN HOP 


139 


charm I saw about him was maybe partly of my 
own imagining. It worried me dreadfully. How 
is one to know? As we floated through the last 
dance together I began to think that if we were 
thrown together often I might find that he was 
the one person in the world I would care for above 
all others. And ^’^et, John Wynne had thought 
that about Esther and so had Richard. I wished 
I had some absolutely sure test, some magic 
charm, by which I could know the gold of real 
love from the imitation that glitters lil^e it. 

I lost the rhinestone buckle off one of my slip- 
pers and my coral dress caught on a jagged hoop 
of one of the tubs that the palms were in, and 
tore such a long slit in it that I can never wear it 
again. But it has served its purpose in the world. 
I’ve had two perfectly heavenly evenings in it. 
I ’ve saved a handsbreadth of its pink loveliness to 
put away and keep in memory of that happy time. 

The boys wouldn’t go home until Mrs. Locke 
promised to bring us down again for June week. 
She promised, but I’m almost sure Barby won’t 
let me go. The last thing Duffield did was to ask 
me again for that picture. “Please,” he said in 
an undertone when he stooped to pick up my hand- 
kerchief. And he said it again in a meaning half- 
whisper as we shook hands all around in the gen- 
eral chorus of “Goodbye till June week.” 


CHAPTER Xn 


“shod goes sure’^ 

June week has come and gone, hnt I was not 
there when the midshipmen went marching by in 
their white uniforms across the green mall, and 
the band played and parasols and summer dresses 
fluttered their gay colors from the Armory to the 
training ship. 

Father wrote that he was coming, and would 
take me home with him if I didn’t mind missing 
commencement. I did mind, terribly, but it was 
nothing when weighed in the balance with travel- 
ling back to the Cape with him and being with him 
a whole week. 

So Babe and Lillian went without me, but it was 
some comfort afterward to hear that the boys 
all seemed disappointed because I wasn’t there. 
They sent ever so many nice messages. Duffield 
sent me a Lucky Bag, the midshipmen’s Annual, 
full of jokes about each other and some very 
attractive pictures both of the men and the build- 
140 


“SHOD GOES SURE’’ 


141 


ings. There was a splendid one of him, and he 
drew a little sketch of Commodore Perry’s flag 
on the margin, changing the motto to the words. 

Won’t give up the ship.” 

Babe brought back a Lucky Bag, too; Watson 
gave it to her. She also had a postal card of 
that old Indian figurehead, Tecumpseh. I believe 
Babe must have made some wish while running 
around it which came true, or else Watson gave 
her the postal. It surely must have some associa- 
tion for her, for she brought it back to Province- 
town and has it now, framed in a carved ivory 
frame, the handsomest one in the house, and 
wholly unsuitable for an old wooden Indian. She 
keeps it on her side of the bureau, and Viola 
simply loathes it. 

Father and I had a delightfully cosy visit on the 
way home. We stayed all night in Boston and 
came over on the boat. He has been under a 
frightful strain and shows it; looks so worn and 
tired and has ever so many more gray hairs than 
he had a year ago. He came right from the war 
zone, and twice has been on ships that had to go 
to the rescue of torpedoed vessels and pick up pas- 
sengers adrift in life-boats. 

I couldn’t get him to talk much about such 
things. He said he was trying to put them out of 
his mind as much as possible, and was hungry to 


142 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


get back to the sand dunes and just peaceful 
women folks. His eyes followed Barby’s every 
movement. At times they had a grave, wistful ex- 
pression Avhich gave me dreadful forebodings. 

Coming over on the boat he questioned me about 
the course of study at Harrington Hall — ^how far 
I’d gone in mathematics and everything. Then 
he asked what I thought about learning type- 
writing this summer, and taking a short practical 
business course in Mr. Carver’s office. I was so 
astonished I couldn’t speak for a moment. All I 
could think of was Chicken-Little ’s cry — “The 
sky’s a-f ailing. I was sitting under a rose-bush 
and a piece fell on me.” 

Finally, instead of answering his question, I 
blurted out the one I was fixing to ask him later 
on, after I’d paved the way for it and led up to it 
diplomatically, about my stopping school and tak- 
ing the training for a Red Cross nurse. The mo- 
ment it was out I knew I had bungled it by being 
so abrupt. He simply waved it aside as impos- 
sible. He said I didn’t understand the conditions 
at the front at all. They needed women there, not 
immature girls unfitted both physically and men- 
tally to cope with its horrors. They would be ner- 
vous wrecks in a short time. He said he was 
speaking from a physician’s standpoint. He rec- 
ognized the Joan of Arc spirit in the school-girls 


“SHOD GOES SURE’^ 


143 


who offered themselves. It was one of the most 
beautiful and touching things the war had called 
forth, but they needed something more than youth- 
ful enthusiasm and a passion for sacrifice. When 
I was through school if I still wanted to take the 
training he wouldn’t say a word, but now 

The shake of his head and the gesture of his 
hand as he said that one word dismissed the sub- 
ject so utterly that I simply couldn’t insist. I 
couldn’t offer a single one of the arguments which 
I had stored up to answer him with in case he ob- 
jected, as I knew he would. 

Then he said he’d always hoped to give me some 
practical business training, just as if I’d been a 
boy, and now the war was making it even more 
necessary that I should have it. If I’d been a boy 
he would have wanted me to go into the Cold 
Storage Plant here that we have an interest in, 
long enough for me to learn how it is carried on 
and what its success depends upon. Mr. Samuel 
Carver II is at the head of it, and Titcomb Car- 
ver and Sammy III will take it up when they’re 
through college. But they’ll be the first to enlist 
when the call comes. They’re that kind. And if 
they never come back the business will be event- 
ually turned over to strangers. He wants me to 
know enough about it to safeguard our interests. 

I was perfectly aghast at the idea. Me, not 


144 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


seventeen till next month, spending all my vaca- 
tion shut up in an office, banging on a typewriter, 
with the whole free sparkling harbor outside call- 
ing to me. I’d planned such good times for this 
summer, a regular under- the-rose-bush” kind, 
no lessons, no rules. Now not only was the sky 
a-falling over my particular bush, it was hitting 
me hard. 

The boat had just rounded the point when 
Father finished unfolding his plan, and we were 
leaning over the railing of the upper deck watch- 
ing for the old town to come in view. For the 
first time it failed to look beautiful to me. The 
straight, ugly lines of the huge Storage plant 
loomed up till it seemed the biggest thing along- 
shore except the Pilgrim monument. That, of 
course, stretched up grim and stern above every- 
thing else, and looked across at me as if it knew 
the hard thing Father had just asked me to do. 
I felt that it heard the rebellious answer I was 
making to myself. 

‘‘I can’t.” 

“You must,” it answered back, as it had done 
all my life. “It’s your duty. The idea of a de- 
scendant of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Minute 
Men shirking her duty ! ’ ’ 

It always gets back at me that way. It knows 
that the stern and rockbound Huntingdon part of 


“SHOD GOES SUEE” 


145 


me could make only one answer when Father put 
the matter to me the way he did. It was a sacri- 
fice, for I had hoped to begin my new novel this 
summer. But I had a sort of righteous, uplifted 
feeling after I had consented, such as I think the 
martyrs must have had, which is the reward of 
sacrifice. It’s queer what a satisfaction one can 
get out of that martyr feeling at times. 

But I was ashamed of it next morning. I was 
going through the hall to join Barby and Father 
on the porch when I heard them talking about me. 

“No, Judson, she’s only a child. I can’t bear 
to have her go out into the rough business world 
this early. There’ll be time enough for that if 
some actual need should arise.” 

“But, Barbara, to let her grow up unprepared 
for what is almost sure to happen, would be like 
sending her out on a stony road in her little bare 
feet. ‘Shod goes sure,’ Uncle Darcy used to say. 
If she’s properly shod she’ll be spared much pain 
and weariness. If you could only realize what lies 
ahead of us — if you could only see what I have 
seen ” 

I walked out on the porch just then and he put 
out his hand to draw me to a seat beside him. 
Then he began to tell us of what he has just seen 
in France and England, the splendid way the 
women and girls over there are rising up and 


146 GEORGINA^S SERVICE STABS 

shouldering their burdens. Of their work in the 
munitions factories and on farms and in railroad 
yards. From peeresses to peasants they stop at 
nothing which needs doing, from oiling a locomo- 
tive to cleaning out a stable. Personal affairs are 
no longer regarded. Personal comfort no longer 
counts. Safety doesn’t count. Life itself doesn’t 
count. The only thing that does count is winning 
the war, and they are giving themselves magnifi- 
cently, body and soul, “as one who does a deed 
for love nor counts it sacrifice.” 

It’s like listening to one of the old Crusaders 
when Father talks that way. It’s a holy war to 
him. When I compared the selfish, easy existence 
I had planned for myself this vacation with what 
the girls over there are doing, and remembered 
how noble I had considered myself for giving it 
up, I felt ashamed of having called it a sacrifice. 
I made up my mind then and there that I’ll make 
good in the way Father wants me to if it kills me. 
He shall never have cause to regret my being just 
a girl. I’m sure he has envied Mr. Carver his 
sons many a time, but I’U show him I can answer 
my Country’s call when it comes, fully as well as 
Titcomb or Sammy m. In the meantime. I’ll 
put in my best licks at getting shod for whatever 
road that lies ahead. 

Of course I didn’t start till Father’s visit was 


“SHOD GOES SURE’’ 


147 


over, but he took me do\vn to the office one morn- 
ing and made all the arrangements. It is the old 
Mr. Carver, Grandfather Huntingdon’s friend, 
who is to take me in hand. Sammy Senior, every- 
body calls him. He doesn’t do much now but sign 
checks and attend to some of the correspondence, 
so he’ll have plenty of time to attend to me, and 
seems glad to do it. 

It was a solemn sort of morning, for we went 
into Mr. Sammy Senior’s office, and Father took 
his private box out of the safe and looked over 
the papers in it. He made a lot of changes and 
told both of us what he told me up in the garret 
last time he was home, and a lot more besides. 
There are certain bonds he wants turned over to 
Uncle Darcy’s grandchildren, Elspeth and little 
Judson, when they are old enough to go to col- 
lege. Judson is Father’s namesake. He ex- 
plained to Mr. Sammy Senior that their father, 
Dan Darcy, saved his life once over in China, 
nursing him, that time he caught the strange dis- 
ease which was attacking the sailors. Father 
had gone over there to study it for the govern- 
ment. 

Dan married Tippy’s niece. Belle Triplett, after 
he came home and is working now in the wireless 
station over at Highland Light, but the govern- 
ment wants him for more important work in the 


148 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


Navy, and Father wants to make sure those chil- 
dren are provided for in case anything happens 
to Dan. Naturally that led to our going over the 
whole story. How Dan disappeared from town 
under a cloud years ago, everybody thinking he 
was the thief, instead of his friend Emmet Potter. 
(Dan just went away, like a scapegoat into the 
wilderness to shield him.) And how a year later 
Emmet was drowned, trying to save some people 
from a wreck on Peaked Hill bars, and the town 
put up a monument in his memory. And then a 
long time after that Richard and I found his con- 
fession in an old musket that we were cleaning up 
to play pirate with. 

It was as dramatic as a real play, the finding 
of that confession, and I enjoyed telling it again 
to such an appreciative audience. How Richard 
and I were sitting in the swing in front of Uncle 
Darcy’s door, polishing the brass plate on the 
stock, when we found it, and I went screaming into 
the house that Danny was innocent. How Belle, 
who happened to be there by the strangest coin- 
cidence, read the confession over Uncle Darcy’s 
shoulder, and cried out Emmet a thief! God in 
heaven, it will kill me!” and how she carried on 
like a crazy woman till she made Uncle Darcy 
promise he’d never tell till she gave him permis- 
sion, although he would have given his life to wipe 


“SHOD GOES SURE” 


149 


the stain from Danny’s name. She was engaged 
to Emmett when he died, and had been worship- 
ping him as a hero up to this time. She didn’t 
know till later that one of the reasons that Dan 
took Emmet’s disgrace on himself was to shield 
her, because he had cared for her all along as 
much as Emmet did. 

Then Father took up the story again, and told 
how my letter reached him over there in China 
and led to the discovery that the silent young 
American who had saved his life was no other 
than Dan, who didn’t know till then that Emmet 
had confessed and that exile was no longer neces- 
sary. “And so,” said Father in conclusion, “he 
came back and married Belle, and, thanks to the 
little pirates, they lived happily ever after.” 

‘ ‘ That would make a rattling good movie, ’ ’ Mr. 
Carver said. ‘ ‘ That ship-wreck scene, and finding 
the confession, and you children burying that 
pouch of gold-pieces in the sand, for the storm 
to cover up forever. If the little pirate can write 
it as well as she can tell it there’s the material all 
right. ’ ’ 

All the way home I kept thinking of his sug- 
gestion. I had never used material from real life 
before. I had always made up my characters. But 
now I began to see some of the familiar town peo- 
ple in a new light. Plain, quiet Dan, doing his 


150 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


deed regardless of the disgrace it brought upon 
liim, was a real Sir Gareth. And dear old Uncle 
Darcy, vowed to silence so long, what a heroic part 
he had played ! 

“I’ll try it some day on the typewriter,” I re- 
solved. Then I thought Father was right when he 
said “shod goes sure.” Knowing how to use the 
typewriter will be a help in my literary career. It 
begins to look as if every road I happen to take 
leads into the one of my great ambition. 



CHAPTEE Xin 


A WORK-A-DAT VACATION 

It was late in the afternoon when we crossed the 
sandy conrt and went throngh the picket gate into 
Uncle Darcy’s grassy dooryard. As nsual the old 
yellow-nosed cat was curled up in one of the seats 
in the wooden swing, and the place was so quiet 
and cool after the glare of the sun and sand we 
had tramped through, that Father took off his hat 
with a sigh of relief. 

Belle and Dan live next door now in the cottage 
where Mrs. Saggs used to live. We could see 
little Elspeth’s flaxen head bobbing up and do^vn 
as she played in the sandpile on the other side of 
the fence. I was just thinking that I was no big- 
ger than she is now when I first began coming 
down to Fishburn Court, when Father startled me 
by saying the same thing. He was just Elspeth’s 
siz^ when he began tagging after Uncle Darcy all 
day long. 

Aunt Elspeth sat dozing in her wheeled chair 
151 


152 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


inside the screen door. When we went in she 
didn’t recognize Father. Had to be told who he 
was. But when she got it through her head that 
it was “Judson, groAvui up and come back from 
sea,” she was fairly childish in her welcome of 
him. She wanted him to hide as he used to do 
when he was a boy and let *‘Dan’l” guess who 
was there when he came home. And Father hu- 
mored her, and we went out into the kitchen when 
we heard Uncle Darcy click the gate-latch. Then 
in her childish delight at his home-coming she 
forgot everything else. She even forgot we were 
in the house, so, of course, couldn’t ask him to 
guess who was there. 

He came in breathing hard, for the length of 
the town is a long walk when one is eighty odd.” 
He had been crying a church supper, and was so 
tired his feet could scarcely drag him along. But 
he didn’t sit dovm — just put the big bell on the 
mantel and went over to Aunt Elspeth. And then, 
somehow, the tenderness of a lifetime seemed ex- 
pressed in the way he bent down and laid his 
weatherbeaten old cheek against her wrinkled one 
for a moment, and took her helpless old hands in 
his, feeling them anxiously and trying to warm 
them between his rough palms. 

There was something so touching in his un- 
spoken devotion and the way she clung to him, as 


A WORK-A-DAY VACATION 153 

if the brief separation of a few hours had been 
one of days, that I felt a lump in my throat and 
glanced up to see that the little scene seemed to 
affect Father in the same way. 

Then Uncle Darcy fumbled in his pocket and 
brought out a paper bag and laid it in her lap, 
watching her with a pleased twinkle in his dim 
eyes, while she eagerly untwisted the neck and 
peered in to find a big, sugary cinnamon bun. 

“You’re so good to me, Dan’l,” she said quaver- 
ingly. “Always so good. You’re the best man 
the Lord ever made.” 

And he patted her shoulder and pulled the cush- 
ions up behind her, saying, “Tut, lass! You’ll 
spoil me, talking that way.” 

Then Father cleared his throat and went into 
the room, and Uncle Darcy’s delight at seeing him 
was worth going far to see. You’d have thought 
it was his own son come home again. But even in 
the midst of all they had to say to each other it 
was plain that his mind was on Aunt Elspeth’s 
comfort. Twice he got up to slap at a fly which 
had found its way in through the screens to her 
annoyance, and another time to change the posi- 
tion of her chair when the shifting sunlight 
reached her face. 

On the way home I asked, “Did you ever see 
such devotion?” I was so sure that Father would 


154 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


answer that he never had, that I was surprised 
and somewhat taken aback by his emphatic yes. 
His face looked so stern and sad that I couldn’t 
understand it. We walked nearly a block before 
he added, 

“It was an old, old couple, just like Uncle Darcy 
and Aunt Elspeth. I kept thinking of them all 
the time I was at Fishburn Court. Their home 
was just as peaceful, their devotion to each other 
as absolute. It was in Belgium. The Huns came 
and tore them apart. Bayoneted her right before 
the old man’s agonized eyes, and drove him off 
with the other villagers like frightened, helpless 
sheep, to die in the open. When he w’-andered back 
weeks afterward, dazed and half-starved, he found 
every home in the village in ruins. His w^as 
burned to the ground. Only the well was left, but 
when he drank of it he nearly died. It had been 
poisoned. He’s in an asylum now, near Paris. 
Fortunately, his memory is gone.” 

When I cried out at the hideousness of it. Father 
put his arm across my shoulder a moment saying, 
“Forgive me, dear. I wish I might keep the 
knowledge of such horrors from you, but we are 
at a place now where even the youngest must be 
made to realize that the only thing in the world 
worth while is the winning of this war. Some- 
times I feel that I must stop every one I meet and 


A WORK-A-DAY VACATION 


155 


tell them of the horrors I have seen, till they feel 
and see as I do/’ 

I understood what was in his mind when a little 
farther along we met two young Portuguese fish- 
ermen. They were Joseph and Manuel Fayal. He 
had known them ever since the days when they 
used to go past our place dragging their puppy in 
a rusty tin pan tied to a string, and using such 
shocking language that I was forbidden to play 
vdth them. They are big, handsome men now, with 
black mustaches and such a flashing of white teeth 
and black eyes when they smile that the sudden 
illumination of their faces makes me think of a 
lightning-bug. 

They flashed that kind of a smile at Father, 
when he stopped to shake hands with them, plainly 
flattered at his remembering their names. I could 
see them eyeing his uniform admiringly, and they 
seemed much impressed when he said, “We need 
you in the navy, boys,” and went on in his grave 
way to put the situation before them in a few 
forceful sentences. 

He was that way all the time he was at home. 
It made no difference where we went or what we 
were doing, he couldn’t shake off the horror of 
things he had seen, and the knowledge that they 
were still going on. Several times he said he felt 
he oughtn’t to be taking even a week’s rest. It 


156 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


was like taking a vacation from fighting mad dogs. 
Every moment should be spent in beating them 
off. 

It worried Barby dreadfully to see him in such 
a state. She’s afraid he’ll break down under the 
strain. He’s promised her that when the war is 
over he’ll ask for a year’s leave. 

Father has been gone two weeks. It was hard 
to see him go this time, so much harder than usual, 
that I am glad to have my days filled up with work 
as well as play. Down at the office I’m so busy 
there isn’t time to remember things that hurt. 
This arrangement isn’t half as bad as it sounded 
at first. In fact, it isn’t at all bad, and there’s 
lots about it that I enjoy immensely. 

For one thing I go only in the mornings. The 
stenographer is a nice Boston girl who gives me 
lessons in shorthand in between times when she 
isn’t busy, and I’m getting a lot by myself, just 
out of a text book. I can already run the type- 
writer, and I certainly bless Tippy these days for 
giving me such a thorough training in spelling. 
Old Mr. Carver is a darling. He likes taking me 
around inside the business and showing me how 
the wheels go round. It may sound disrespectful, 
to say it gives him a chance to show off, but I 
don’t mean it that way. 


A WORK-A-DAY VACATION 


157 


I ’m learning all about the weirs and the fisher- 
ies connected with the Plant, and where our mar- 
kets are, and what makes the prices go up and 
down, and where we buy chemicals to freeze with 
and what companies we’re insured with and all 
that sort of thing. It’s amazing to discover how 
many things one has to know — ^banking and pay- 
rolls and shipping and important clauses in con- 
tracts. I never before realized how pitifully ig- 
norant I am and what a world full of things there 
is to learn outside of the school room. 

One of his ways of testing how much I have 
learned about shipments and prices and things, is 
to hand me a letter to answer, just for practice, 
not to send away. I’ve always been told that I 
write such good letters that I was awfully morti- 
fied over the way that he smiled at my first at- 
tempt. I had prided myself on its being quite a 
literary production. But I caught on right away 
what he meant, when he told me in his whimsical 
fashion that “frills are out of place in a business 
letter. They must be severely plain and tailor- 
made.” Then he gave me a sample and after that 
it was easy enough. I’ve answered three “ac- 
cording to my lights,” as he puts it, that were 
satisfactory enough to send, without any dicta- 
tion from him. 

Often he drifts into little anecdotes about grand- 


158 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


father, and lots of things I never heard before 
about the Huntingdon family and the older tovui 
people. Usually the mornings fly by so fast that 
I’m surprised when the noon whistle blows and 
it’s time to go home. At first I brought my knit- 
ting along to pick up at odd moments, such as 
the times when he gets to reminiscing. Then I 
got so interested in practising shorthand, that I 
began taking down his conversations, as much as 
I could get of them. That old saying of Uncle 
Darcy’s, ‘‘All’s fish that comes to my net,” seems 
to be a true one. For everything that comes my 
way seems to help along towards the goal of my 
ambition. These very tales I am taking dovui in 
shorthand, once I am proficient enough to catch 
more than one word in a sentence, may prove to 
be very valuable material for future stories. 

It isn’t turning out to be a very gay summer 
after all. Babe and Viola are up in the White 
Mountains, and Judith is tied at home so closely, 
keeping house and nursing her mother who has 
been ill all vacation, that I never see her except 
when I go to the house. George Woodson is a 
reporter on a Boston paper, and comes home only 
on Sunday now and then, and Richard seems to 
have dropped entirely out of my life. He says he 
is so busy these days that there’s never any time 


A WORK-A-DAY VACATION 


159 


to write, except when he’s so dead tired he can’t 
spell his own name. 

There’s so little going on here of interest to him 
that my letters to him are few and far between. 
It’s strange how absence makes people drift apart. 
When he was home he was one of the biggest 
things in my landscape. If he were here now I’d 
find plenty of time to boat and ride and talk with 
him, but now it’s hard to find a moment for even 
a short note ; that is, when I’m in a mood for writ- 
ing one. I surely do miss him, though. We’ve 
spent so many summers together. 

For the few things that happened between my 
seventeenth birthday and this last day of August, 
see my * ‘ Book of Second Chronicles. ’ ’ Barby was 
so interested in reading my Harrington Hall rec- 
ord, and so very complimentary, that I have been 
writing in it this summer, to the neglect of this old 
blank book. But I’m going to put it in the bottom 
of my trunk and take it back to school with me. 

Babe is back home. She had a chance to investi- 
gate the brass balls of that bedstead in the White 
Mountains. She did it in fear and trembling, for 
it was in her Aunt Mattie’s room, and she was 
afraid she ’d walk in any minute and ask what she 
was doing. The balls were empty. So she’s still 
wondering where in the Salvation Army those let- 


160 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


ters can be. We are going back to Washington 
together next week. To think of our being Sen- 
iors ! Father is going to be pleased when he gets 
Mr. Carver’s report of me. I never had a vaca- 
tion fly by so fast. 



PART n 


/ 


**True to One^s Orbit and the Service of Shining ” 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE CALL TO ARMS 

It has come at last — the call to arms — the big- 
gest thing that may ever be my lot to record in all 
my life, or the life of my country. So I have 
hunted up this old book of Memoirs that I have 
not written in for months, in order that I may put 
down the date. 

April 6, 1917. On this day the United States 
declared war against Germany! 

Far down the street a band is playing, and in 
every direction flags are flying in the warm April 
breeze. All Washington is a-flutter with banners. 
The girls are so excited that they canT talk of 
anything else. Some of them have been in tears 
ever since the announcement came. Many of 
them have brothers in Yale or Princeton or Har- 
vard whoVe only been waiting for this to break 
away and enlist. Not that the girls don’t glory in 
the fact that they’ve got some one to go, just as 
I glory in the thought that Father is in the service. 
163 


164 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


But we’ve been on a fearful nervous strain ever 
since the last of January, when Germany declared 
she’d sink at sight aU vessels found in certain 
zones, and those zones are the very waters where 
our ships are obliged to go. 

Lillian Locke’s Uncle Charlie went down in one 
of the merchant ships they sank last month. He 
was her favorite uncle, and most of us girls knew 
him. He came to the school twice last year, and 
whenever he sent Lillian ‘‘eats” he sent enough 
for her to treat the entire class. Then there is 
Duffield, and Bailey Burrell and Watson Tucker 
all off on the high seas somewhere. Sometimes at 
vespers when we sing: 

”0 hear us when we cry to Thee 
For those in peril on the sea,” 

the thought of Father and of all those boys who 
danced with us just a year ago, and who went 
marching so gaily across the green mall, chokes 
me so that I can’t sing another note. Sometimes 
all over the chapel voices waver and stop till only 
the organ is left to finish it alone. 

We Seniors have voted to cut out all frills in 
our Commencement exercises, and give the money 
to the Red Cross. We’re going to wear simple 
white shirt-waist suits. It ’ll make it such a plain 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


165 


affair it won’t be worth while for our families to 
come on to see us get our diplomas. 

Barby is coming anyhow, and I know she’ll be 
disappointed. She has all the old-time ideas about 
flowers and fluffy ruffles for the “sweet girl grad- 
uates. ’ ’ She had them herself, with so many pres- 
ents and congratulations that her graduation was 
almost as grand an occasion as her wedding. Her 
Aunt Barbara’s pearl necklace which she inher- 
ited was handed over to her then, and I think she 
has visions of my wearing it on the same stage, 
on the occasion of my Commencement. There are 
only a few strands in the necklace and the pearls 
are quite small, though exquisitely beautiful, but, 
of course, I couldn’t wear it with just a plain shirt- 
waist. 

Easter has come and gone, and nothing of im- 
portance has happened here at School, but a letter 
from Barby brings news of happenings at home 
which have a place in this record, so I am copying 
it. 

“What a cold and snowy Spring this has been! 
All week we have had to pile on the wood as we 
do in midwinter. I am glad that you are away 
from this bleak tongue of sand, far enough inland 
and far enough South to escape these cold winds 
from the Atlantic, and to have Spring buds 


166 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


and Spring bird-calls in the school garden. 

“Yesterday, just before supper, while I sat knit- 
ting in the firelight, the front doorbell rang. Not 
hearing Tippy go out into the hall, I started to 
answer it. You know how she opens a door by 
degrees, one cautious inch and then another — 
well, I was just in time to see a big man in a fur 
cap and burly overcoat shoulder his way in and 
throAV his arms aroimd her in a hearty embrace. 
I couldn’t see his face in the dusk, nor did I recog- 
nize the deep voice that cried out — ‘Ah, Tippy! 
But you look good to me ! ’ 

“The next instant I was caught up in a great 
bear hug by those same strong arms. It was Rich- 
ard, home again after two long years, and so glad 
to be back that it was a joy to see his delight. He 
had come home to enlist. 

“You can easily picture for yourself the scene 
at the table a little while later. He teased and 
flattered Tippy till she was almost beside herself. 
She kept getting up to open some new jar of pickle 
or preserves, or to bring on something else from 
the pantry which she remembered he had an espe- 
cial liking for. Afterwards he insisted on tying 
one of her aprons around him and wiping the 
dishes for her. He kept her quivering with con- 
cern as usual for the safety of the cups and sau- 
cers, when he tried his old juggling tricks of 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


167 


keeping several in the air at the same time. 

‘ ‘ But later, when we were alone, he dropped all 
his gay foolery and sat down on the hearthrug at 
my feet, as he used to do when he was a little lad, 
and, leaning his head against my knee, looked into 
the fire. 

“ ‘You’re all I Ve got now, Barby,’ he said, and 
took my knitting away that my hand might be free 
to stray over his forehead as it used to do when 
he came to me for sympathy and comfort. After 
a moment he began talking about his father. It 
was the first time I had seen him, you know, since 
Mr. Moreland was killed. 

“Then he told me how circumstances had made 
it possible for him to come back to the States to 
enlist, as soon as war was declared. He is no 
longer bound by his promise to the Canadian 
whose family he was caring for. The man was 
sent back home two months ago, dismissed from 
a hospital in France. He was wounded twice so 
badly that one leg had to be amputated. But 
though he came home on crutches he came back 
vdth something which he values more than his 
leg — the Victoria Cross. He ■won it in an awful 
battle, one in which nearly his whole regiment was 
wiped out. 

“Richard sprang up from the rug and paced the 
floor as he talked about it. His face glowed so 


168 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


that I couldn’t help asking, ‘But how did you feel 
when you saw him with the cross that might have 
been yours had you gone in his stead?’ 

“He stood a moment with one elbow resting on 
the mantel, looking down into the fire. Then he 
said slowly, ‘Well, it would have been ripping, of 
course, to have had it one ’s self — worth dying for 
in fact; but after all, you know, little Mother, it 
isn’t the “guerdon” any of us are after in this 
war. It’s just that the deed gets done. I believe 
that is the spirit in which all America is going 
into it. Not for any gain — not for any glory — 
she’s simply saying to herself and to the world, 
“For the deed's sake will I do this.” ’ 

“As he said that, he looked so like his father in 
one of his inspired moods, that I realized the two 
years in which he has been away has made a man 
of him. It was only that he w^as so boyishly glad 
to be at home again that I hadn’t noticed before 
how earnest and mature he had grown to be. 

“Within a month after the Canadian’s return, 
he was able to take a place in the factory. His 
artificial limb made it possible. Richard went at 
once to an aviation field to complete his training. 
He intended to go from there to join a flying 
squadron in France, for his Cousin James is ready 
now to do anything for him he asks. But just as 
he was about to start, the United States declared 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


169 


war, and he hurried home to enlist under his own 
flag. He has been promised a commission and an 
opportunity to go soon in some special capacity, 
for he passed all the tests in expert flying. He 
will probably be kept at Newport News while 
he is waiting for some bit of red tape to be 
untied. 

“He did not stay late, for there were some busi- 
ness matters he had to discuss with Mr. Milford, 
and he left town early this morning. Several 
times while here, he glanced around saying, 
‘Somehow I keep expecting Georgina to pop in 
every time the door opens. It doesn’t seem like 
home without her here to keep things stirred up. ’ 

“He asked many questions about you and said 
that he hopes mightily to see you before he sails. 
I told him that w^as highly improbable as Com- 
mencement is to be so late this year owing to the 
enforced vacation in January when over half the 
school was in quarantine on account of mumps and 
measles. That was the first he had heard of it, 
and he said to congratulate you for him on your 
lucky escape.” 

I am glad that Barby wrote in detail as she did, 
for I have not had a line from Richard in three 
months. Evidently he did not get my last letter, 
for in that I told him all about that quarantine, 
and the fun we girls had who escaped the con- 


170 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


tagion, but who were kept in durance vile on ac- 
count of the others. 

I wish I had been at home when he surprised 
them. I wish I were a boy and could do what he 
is doing. It would be simply glorious to go wing- 
ing one’s way into battle as he will do. It’s one 
thing to give your life for your country in one ex- 
alted moment of renunciation, and quite another 
to give it in little dribs of insignificant sacrifices 
and petty duties, the way we stay-at-home girls 
have to do. It is maddening to have the soul of 
an ‘ ‘ Ace ’ ’ who would dare any flight or of a “ Sam- 
mie” who would endure any trench, and then have 
nothing but a pair of knitting needles handed out 
to you. 

Another letter from Barby this week. Of 
course I knew the war would come close home in 
many ways, but I hadn’t expected it would get that 
little mother-o ’-mine first thing. This is what she 
writes : 

“It is quite possible that I may be in Washing- 
ton by the last of May. Mrs. Waldon has written, 
begging me to come and stay with her while Cath- 
erine goes back to Kentucky for a visit. She 
writes that she is ‘up to her ears’ in the Army and 
Navy League work, and that is where I belong. 
She says I should be there getting inspiration for 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


171 


all this end of the state, and lending a hand in the 
grand drive they are planning for. Her letter is 
such a veritable call to arms that I feel that I’ll 
be shirking my duty if I don’t go. Tippy says 
there is no reason why I shouldn’t go. She can 
get Miss Susan Triplett to come up from Well- 
fleet to stay with her till you come home. 

“Her patriotic old soul is fired with joy at no 
longer being under the ban of a ^neutral’ silence. 
When it comes to her powers of speech, Tippy on 
the war-path is a wonder. I wish the Kaiser could 
hear her when she is once thoroughly warmed up 
on the subject. She’d be in the first soup-kitchen 
outfit that leaves for the front if it wasn’t for her 
rheumatism As it is, she is making the best self- 
appointed recruiting officer on the whole Cape. 

“I have written to your father, asking him if he 
can find me a place where I can be useful on one 
of the hospital ships; I can’t nurse, but there 
ought to be many things I can do if it’s nothing 
more than scrubbing the operating rooms and 
sterilizing instruments. And maybe in that way 
I could see him occasionally. Of course it isn’t 
as if he were stationed on one particular ship. I 
believe he could manage it then, but being needed 
in many places and constantly moving he may not 
want me to go. In that case I shall join Mrs. Wal- 
don. She says she can put me into a place where 


172 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


every hour ’s work will count for something worth 
while.” 

It made the tears come to my eyes when I read 
that. Little Barby, out in the world doing things 
for her country ! Since I have grown to be half a 
head taller than she, and especially since my office 
training last summer and Father ’s leaving her in 
my care, I’ve been thinking of her as little Barby. 
She’s never done anything in public but read her 
graduating essay. The tables are turned now. It 
is she who is going out on a stony road in her 
little bare feet, and she’s never been shod for such 
going. But she’s got the spirit of the old Virginia 
Cavaliers, even if she didn’t inherit a Pilgrim- 
father backbone as the Huntingdons did. She’ll 
never stop for the stones, and she’ll get to any 
place she starts out to reach. I’m as proud of 
her as I am of Father. I’ve simply got to do 
something myself, as soon as school is out. 



CHAPTER XV 


“the gates ajar” 

Commencement is over, tlie good-byes are said 
and mo^t of the girls have departed for home. 
Babe and I leave this morning at ten o’clock when 
Mrs. Waldon’s machine is to come for ns and take 
us to her apartment for a week’s visit. Babe is 
included in the invitation because she can’t go 
home till I do. Her family won’t let her travel 
alone, although she’s nineteen, a year and a month 
older than I. 

Father wasn’t willing for Barby to leave this 
country, so she went into the Army and Navy 
League work with Mrs. Waldon, the first month 
she was here. But now she’s at the head of one 
of the departments in the Red Cross and will be 
in Washington all summer, and longer if neces- 
sary. I’ve finished my Book of Second Chronicles 
and shall leave it for I.er to read whenever she can 
find an opportunity. But I’m keeping my Mem- 
oirs out of my trunk till the last moment, because 
there’s something I want to write in it about 
Babe. 


173 


174 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


It was agreed that nobody was to wear flowers 
at Commencement, and we asked our families not 
to send any, so it was generally understood that 
there was to be no display of any kind. But yes- 
terday an enormous florist box arrived for Babe 
Nolan. If she hadn’t been so mysterious about it 
we wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Any one 
of us would have opened it right then and there 
in the hall, and passed it around to be snilfed and 
admired. But she got as red as fire and, grabbing 
the box, hurried into her room with it and shut 
the door. That’s the last anybody saw of it. A 
little later when I had occasion to go to her room 
there wasn’t a sign of a flower to be seen, not 
even the box or a piece of string. The girls all 
thought it was queer they should disappear so ab- 
solutely, and wondered why she didn’t put them 
in the dining-room or the chapel if she didn’t 
want them in her own room, and they teased her 
a good deal about her mysterious suitor. 

But last night, after Lillian and Jessica had 
started to the train, she called me to her room and 
threw open the wardrobe door with a tragic ges- 
ture", and asked me what on earth she was to do 
with that. Her trunk wouldn ’t hold another thing, 
and she supposed she’d have to go all the way to 
the Cape with it in her two hands, and it smelled 
so loud of tuberoses and such things she was 


“THE GATES AJAR’^ 


175 


afraid people would think she was taking it to a 
funeral. 

There on the wardrobe flood stood a floral design 
fully three feet high, that looked exactly as if in- 
tended for a funeral, for it was one of those pieces 
called ‘ ‘ Gates Ajar. ’ ’ I didn’t dare laugh because 
Babe stood there looking so worried and so deeply 
in earnest that I knew she ’d be offended if I did. 
I suggested simply leaving it behind, or taking out 
the flowers and chucking the wire frame into the 
ash can. Then I saw my advice was unacceptable. 
Evidently she hadn’t told me all, and didn’t in- 
tend to for fear I’d laugh at the person who sent 
such a design. 

But when I said in a real sympathetic and un- 
derstanding way that it was so appropriate for a 
Commencement offering because everybody thinks 
of Commencement Day as being a gate ajar, 
through which a school girl steps into the wider 
life beyond, she gave me a sharp glance and then 
took me into her confidence. She had on one of 
those new sport skirts with two enormous side 
pockets, the most stylish thing I ever saw Babe 
wear. She drew a card out of one of the pock- 
ets. On it was engraved, “Lieutenant Watson 
Tucker.” 

I nearly dropped with surprise, for two reasons. 
First, I didn’t think he was the oort of a man to 


176 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


send such a queer thing. It would have been more 
like him to have sent a bunch of sweet peas. And 
second, I didn’t know he had kept up with Babe 
enough to know the date of her graduation. 

She said yes, they correspond occasionally, and 
in his last letter he said he was expecting to have 
a two-weeks’ shore leave soon. She wouldn’t be 
surprised any day to hear that the ship was in. 
Although she said it airily, I know Babe. She 
couldn’t fool me. She over-acted her indiffer- 
ence, and when she said she supposed she might 
as well box up the flowers and take them along 
when the machine came, I knew positively that 
she cared far more for Watty Tucker than she’d 
have me know. 

Babe says it’s like visiting in the Hall of Fame 
to be here at Mrs. Waldon’s. Every way we turn 
are autographed pictures on the walls of celebri- 
ties who have helped to make history. Every time 
the door bell rings it is a call from somebody who 
is helping to make it now. And they’re not Ad- 
mirals and Generals and diplomats and their 
wives to Mrs. Waldon. They’re just Joe and Ned 
and Nancy who took “pot luck” with her in the 
old army days on the frontier before they got to 
be famous or else somebody who knew her inti- 
mately in the Philippines. 


‘‘THE GATES AJAR»» 


177 


It is so thrilling to meet them and so interesting 
to hear intimate bits of their family history after- 
ward. People she hasn’t heard of in years are 
constantly turning up, brought to Washington by 
the war. Only this morning, a Major whom she 
thought was out among the “head-hunters” 
dropped in and stayed to lunch. 

We have spent the greater part of every day 
sight-seeing. Not the usual places like Mount 
Vernon and the Smithsonian, etc. We’ve been 
doing them for the last two years in school ex- 
cursions with the teachers. But places that have 
taken on unusual interest because of these stir- 
ring war times. We went over to Fort Meyer in 
time for “Retreat” one afternoon, and again to 
see the trench-digging and the dummies being put 
up for bayonet practice. And we spent hours pt 
the Wadsworth House, a palace of a home which 
has been turned over to relief work. There is 
where Barby spends most of her time. I was so 
thrilled when I found her there at a desk, direct- 
ing things in her department, and looking so lovely 
in her uniform, white with a band around her 
sleeve, and a blue veil floating over her shoulders, 
bound on the forehead by a white band and a red 
cross. 

Two retired Admirals in their shirt sleeves were 
filling huge packing boxes in one of the side rooms. 


178 GEORGINA SERVICE STABS 

They give their services, working like Trojans all 
day long. Upstairs in the great dismantled ball- 
room, and the apartments adjoining, were long 
tables surrounded by the women working on surgi- 
cal dressings and hospital garments and comfort 
kits. Downstairs, near the entrance, was the desk 
of the Motor Service Corps. A pretty society girl 
in a stunning uniform came in while we stood 
there, saluted her superior officer, received her 
orders and started out to drive her machine on 
some Eed Cross errand, with all the neatness and 
dispatch of a regular enlisted soldier. That’s 
what I’d love to do, if I only had a machine of my 
own. She looked too adorable for words In that 
uniform. 

One afternoon we went out to see the President 
receive the Sanitary Corps of a thousand men 
trained to carry litters. A temporary platform 
gay with bunting and flags was erected on the edge 
of the green where the President and his guests 
of honor sat. Barby was one of them in her float- 
ing blue veil, on account of the position she holds 
now. We parked the machine and sat down tailor- 
fashion on the grass in the front row of the 
crowd, which pressed against the rope that barred 
our enti ance to the mall. 

After awhile there was a sound of music down 
the street, and the marine band came marching 


“THE GATES AJAR” 


179 


across the great field towards us, at the head of 
the litter-bearers. It was a sunny afternoon, and 
the band played a gay marching tune as they ad- 
vanced. I was feeling so uplifted over Barby’s 
being on the grandstand among the honor guests, 
looking her prettiest, that I didn’t realize the sig- 
nificance of the scene at first. Then the thought 
stabbed me like a knife, that on every one of those 
litters somebody’s best beloved might some day 
be stretched, desperately wounded maybe, dead 
or dying. I couldn’t help thinking “suppose I 
should see Father brought in that way, or Rich- 
ard.” When I glanced across at Babe the tears 
v/ere running down her cheeks, so it evidently af- 
fected her the same way. 

I’d have been ^villing to wager she was seeing 
Watson on one of those stretchers. When we got 
back to our room, which is a large one with twin 
beds in it, she dived under hers and pulled out the 
big florist’s box and carried it to the bathroom to 
sprinkle the flowers. It’s wonderful how fresh 
the thing has kept. She’s had it nearly a week. 
She treats it like a mother would an idiot child, 
keeps it out of sight of the public, but hangs over 
it when alone vnth a tenderness that is positively 
touching. 

Babe ’s the funniest thing ! Every time the hall 
door opens she is out and up the little stairway 


180 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


to the roof, like a cat. It is a nice place to go, for 
there is a magnificent view of the city from ‘there, 
and at night it’s entrancing, with the Monument 
illuminated, and the great dome showing up when 
the searchlights play. But I don’t believe it’s 
the view Babe is after. She wants to be alone. 
Twice when I went up after her to tell her it was 
time to start somewhere, I found her sitting star- 
ing at a rubber plant in front of her, as if she 
didn’t see even that. And once she was leaning 
against the iron railing which surrounds the roof, 
oblivious to the fact that that section of it was 
rusty. It simply ruined her best evening dress, a 
delicate blue veiling made over white silk. AVhen 
we got downstairs to the light there were great 
streaks of iron rust across the whole front, where 
the bars had pressed against it. 

Saturda3^ night ZIrs. Waldon had a long-dis- 
tance call from her cousin, Mac Gordon. His ship 
was in from the long cruise, and the boys were 
scattering to their homes for a short visit before 
being sent to join the fleet abroad. He wanted to 
know if he could stop by next day to see her, on his 
way home. She told him to come and welcome, 
and bring any of the other boys who cared to 
come. That Babe and I were with her. 

'Well, Sunday afternoon when Mac walked in 
there was a whole string of boys behind him; Bob 


^‘THE GATES AJAR’ ^ 181 

Mayfield and Billy Burrell and Watty Tucker. 
Only four in all by actual count, but added to the 
six already in the room, the little apartment 
seemed brim full and running over. Two of her 
old army cronies were there besides Barby. 

I wondered what Mrs. Waldon was going to do 
about feeding them all, because the cook is always 
away on Sunday night. But when the time came 
she simply announced they’d serve supper in the 
time-honored Crabtown fashion. At that the men 
all got up and crowded out into the little kitchen- 
ette to see what she had on her ‘‘emergency shelf” 
and to announce what part each one would be re- 
sponsible for on the menu. 

When we were ready, to sit down to the table 
we noticed that Babe and Watson were missing, 
and when I tried to recall when I had seen them 
last, I was sure they had slipped away during the 
general exodus to the kitchen. And I am sure that 
when I ran up the steps to the roof garden with 
the announcement, “The rarebit is ready,” neither 
one of them was a bit grateful to me. 

I was sorry Duffield Locke wasn’t with the boys. 
His family met him in New York and they went 
on to New York together. Bob Mayfield tried to 
tease me about him. He said Duff had my picture 
in the back of his watch. When I hotly denied it, 
and vowed I had never given him one, except a 


182 GEOEGINA^S SEEVICE STABS) 

little snapshot taken with LiUian of just our heads, 
he said, “Well, Duff had a pair of scissors/’ 

After we went to our room that night, late as 
it was. Babe re-packed her trunk and deliberately 
squeezed all her hats into one compartment, 
thereby ruining two of them for life, to make room 
in the tray for that florist box. The flowers were 
badly shriveled up by that time. Seeing from my 
face that an explanation was necessary, she said 
slie couldn’t carry it back on the train as she had 
intended, because Watson was going up to Prov- 
incetown the same time we were, to visit his cous- 
ins, the Nelsons, and she didn’t want him to see it. 

“But the Nelsons aren’t in Provincetown this 
summer, ’ ’ I answered. ‘ ‘ And he knows it, because 
I told him what Laura said in her last letter. Be- 
sides, why chouldn’t he see his own floral offering? 
He’d be complimented to think you cared enough 
for it to lug it all the way home.” 

She seemed a bit confused at my answer, but I 
couldn’t tell at wMch part of it. Then she said 
that he didn’t pick it out. He thinks he sent roses, 
and he’d have a fit if he knew it was that awful 
Gates Ajar. He sent his card to some old rela- 
tive in Georgetown with a check and asked him 
to order something appropriate for the occasion. 

I asked Babe then, why, if the design wasn’t 
Watty’s <ihoice, and she thought it was so dread- 


‘‘THE GATES AJAR’' 


183 


ful, why did she cling to it so fondly, and take it 
back to the Cape at the risk of all her hats and the 
sure ruin of two of them. But she paid no atten- 
tion to my remark, just went on with her packing. 
I know she’s relieved to find out it v^asn’t Wat- 
ty’s taste. If they are not actually engaged, they 
have almost reached the gate, and it is ajar. 


^■4 




CHAPTER XVI 


HOME-COMINGS 

I MIGHT as well have traveled alone, for all the 
company Babe and Watson proved to be. They 
were so absorbed in their conversation with each 
other that they never once glanced out of the win- 
dow, even when we were going along the Capo 
wliere one is apt to see a familiar face every time 
the train stops. 

I was «o glad to get back to fainiliar scenes lilie 
cranberry bogs and dunes and marshes, with the 
pools of water shining in them like mirrors, that 
I kept exclaiming, ‘‘Oh, look!’’ I said it several 
times before I realized that the landscape had no 
attractions for them. Neither had the stuffy car 
any discomforts, although the hot July sunshine 
streamed in across the red velvet upholstery. 

With their chairs swung facing each other, they 
sat and talked like two Robinson Crusoes who had 
just found each othe-»* after aeons of solitude on 
separate islands. For a while I watched them 
184 


HOME-COMINGS 


185 


over the top of my magazine; Watson mopping 
his shiny red face with his handkerchief, and Babe 
with her hat tilted crooked over one eye and a 
little wisp of hair straggling over her neck, and 
her collar all rnmpled np behind. I kept wonder- 
ing what on earth was the attraction that each had 
for the other. One can understand it when the 
heroine is beautiful and the hero fascinating, but 
how two such plain, average people as Babe Nolan 
and Watson Tucker can inspire the grand passion 
is a puzzle. 

I couldn’t help smiling to myself when I looked 
back on the time when 1 had once imagined Wat- 
son to be the most congenial man I ever met. I 
vras heartily glad that our acquaintance had been 
interrupted at that point, until I grew older and 
wiser. Suppose I had gone on looking at him 
through the prism of my ideals until I actually be- 
lieved that the halo which my imagination put 
around him was a real one ! What a little fool a 
girl of fifteen can be ! It seems tc me I have aged 
more in this last year at school, than in all the 
years that went before it put together. Only a 
few more days until I can count myself actually 
grown up — till I have reached that magic mile- 
stone, my eighteenth birthday! 

Growing up is like the dawning of Spring. Nor 
a long time there are just a few twitters, a hint 


186 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


of buds in the hedgerows. Then, suddenly as an 
April shower, a mist of green drops down over 
the bare branches like a delicate veil, and one 
awakens to a world of bloom and birdsong and ro- 
mance. 

(That’s a good paragraph to start a story with. 
I’ll put an asterisk on the margin to mark it.) 

I had expected to awaken to my Springtime and 
romance this very summer — to iind it perhaps, in 
Kentucky. Barby and I have planned for years 
that my eighteenth birthday should be spent there. 
The very word, Kentucky, suggests romance to 
me. But now that the war has upset everyone’s 
plans. I’ll have to give it up. And Romance is 
not likely to come riding by to such a gray old 
fishing port as Provincetown. 

This is V7hat I told myself as we went along be- 
tween the cranberry bogs and the dunes. But 
suddenly we made a turn that showed us the entire 
end of the Cape. There, with the sunset light 
upon it, was the town, curving around the harbor 
like a golden dream city, rising above a “sea of 
glass mingled with fire.” Spires and towers and 
chimney tops, with the great shaft of the Pilgrims 
high above them all, stood transfigured in that 
wonderful shining. I took it as an omen — a good 
omen of all sorts of delightful and unexpected 
happenings that might come to me. 


HOME-COMINGS 


187 


When we reached the station, I had two com- 
pletely separate and distinct impulses, which made 
me afraid that I still lack considerable of being 
grown up. The first fishy smell of the harbor 
which greeted me, with its tang of brine and tar, 
gave me the impulse to send my suitcase up to the 
house by the baggage man, and run all the way 
home. I wanted to go skipping along the streets 
as I used to when my skirts were knee high and 
my curls bobbing over my shoulders. I wanted to 
speak to everyone I met and have everyone call 
back at me, “Hello, Georgina,” in friendly village 
fashion. I wanted to smell what was cooking for 
supper in every house I passed, and maybe if 
the baker’s cart came along with its inviting step 
in the rear, “hang on behind” for a block or 
two. 

The second impulse was to powder my nose a 
trifle, put on a little face veil and a pair of per- 
fectly fitting gloves, and then when the panel 
mirror between the car windows showed a modish 
and tailor-made young lady, correct in every de- 
tail, step into the bus and drive home to make an 
impression on Tippy. 

The latter impulse dominated, and I am glad it 
did, for Judith and George Woodson and several 
others of the old crowd were at the station to meet 
us. Babe hadn’t even set her hat straight, but 


188 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


she didn’t know it. Neither did Watson. They 
just went along, smiling vacuously (I guess that’s 
as good a word as any, though I’m not exactly 
sure of it) on everything and everybodfy. 

It seemed so strange to come home to a house 
with no Barby in it, but it was such a satisfaction 
to feel that my arrival put Tippy into her little 
company flutter. It was the face veil which did 
it, I am sure, and the urban air which I acquired 
in Washington. I am taller than she, now, and I 
had to stoop a little to kiss her. Instead of her 
saying, as I expected, for me to run along and 
take my things off, because supper was getting 
cold, she led the way upstairs to my room, just as 
if I’d been the visiting missionary’s wife, or rela- 
tives from out of the state. And she went around 
setting things straighter, which were already 
straight, and asking if there was anything I’d 
have to make me comfortable, till I hardly knew 
myself, her making such company out of me. 

Miss Susan Triplett has been here ever since 
Barby went to Washington, but she’s going home 
soon, now that I have come back. Between them 
I got all the news of the town during supper. 
Aunt Elspeth is very, very ill. They’re afraid 
she can’t last long at this rate. They have a 
trained nurse for her and Belle has to spend so 
much of her time over there that Tippy has been 


HOME-COMINGS 


189 


taking care of little Elspeth and Judson in the 
daytime. 

Titcomb Carver and Sammy III have both en- 
listed, and the two Fayal boys, Mamiel and 
Joseph, are in the Navy. Nearly everyone I asked 
about was in some kind of government service. 
Tippy says the Portuguese boys have responded 
splendidly, and she keeps tab on the whole town. 
But she said it is a tragedy about George Wood- 
son. He’s tried four times to enlist, but he can’t 
pass the physical examination. His sight is im- 
perfect and the old trouble with his knee that he 
got from a football accident in his Junior year 
bars him out. Tippy never liked George. He was 
impudent to her one time, years ago. Ran his 
tongue out at her when she told him to quit doing 
something that she thought he had no business to 
do, and she never forgave him. But now she re- 
spects him so much for the desperate way he has 
tried to get into the service, and is so sorry for 
his disappointment, that she can’t say nice enough 
things about him. 

It was late when the expressman brought my 
trunk. Miss Susan had already gone upstairs and 
was putting up her front hair in crimping pins. 
But Tippy never made any objections when I 
started to unpack. I simply can’t get used to be- 
ing treated with so much deference. It’s worth 


190 GEOBGINA^S SERVICE STARS 

growing up just to have her listen so respectfully 
to my opinions and to know that she feels that 
my advice is worth asldng for. 

I only unpacked the top tray to get some things 
Barby and I had bought for her in the Washing- 
ton shops, and to take out something she was even 
more interested in than her gifts. It was a little 
sill?; service flag to hang up in honor of Father. 
She took it in her hands as if it were sacred. I 
never saw her so moved to admiration over any- 
thing, as she was over that little blue star in its 
field of white with the red border around it. 

Her voice didn’t sound natural, because there 
was a queer sort of choke in it when she said: 
“I never before wanted to be a man. But I do 
now, just for the chance to be what that star 
stands for.” 

I had intended to wait till morning before hang- 
ing it in the front window, but she had a hammer 
and a push-pin out of a box in the hall closet before 
I knew what she was looking for, and carried the 
lamp ahead of me down the stairs. “Liberty en- 
lightening the World,” I called it, as she stood 
holding the lamp up for me to see, while I drove 
the push-pin into the window sash. 

But she didn’t laugh with me. It was a solemn 
thing to her, this placing of the symbol which 
showed the world that a patriot had gone out from 


HOME-COMINGS 


191 


the house in defence of his country. Although 
she’s a thin, gaunt figure with her hair twisted 
into a hard little knot on the back of her head, 
and there’s nothing statuesque about a black silk 
dress gathered full at the waist, and a ruffled 
white apron, her waiting attitude seemed to dig- 
nify the occasion and make a ceremony of it. I 
started to say something, jokingly, about firing a 
salute with our ancestral musket, or singing 
“America,” but the expression on her face 
stopped me. The spirit of some old Eevolutionary 
forbear seemed shining in her eyes. I hadn’t 
dreamed that Patriotism meant that to Tippy; 
something exalted enough to transform her 
homely old features with a kind of inner shining. 

Something wakened me very early next morn- 
ing, soon after daybreak. Sitting up to look out 
of the window nearest my bed, I saw somebody 
hoeing in the garden. A Portuguese woman I 
supposed, who was taking the place of the regular 
gardener. Ever since old Jeremy Clapp reached 
his nineties, we’ve had his nephew, young Jeremy. 
But they told me the night before, that he’s gone 
to be a surfman in the U. S. Coast patrol. It was 
especially hard to give him up as the war garden 
he had just put in was twice the size we usually 
have. 

Then I recognized the flapping old sport hat 


192 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


which the woman wore. It was one which I dis- 
carded last year. Underneath it, her skirts tucked 
up to her shoe-tops to avoid the heavy dew, was 
Tippy, hoeing weeds as if she were making a per- 
sonal attack on the Hindenburg line and intended 
demolishing it before breakfast. 

Funny as she looked in her scare-crow working 
outfit, there was something in the sight that made 
me want to stand and salute. It gave me the kind 
of thrill one has when the troops march by, and 
everyone cheers as the colors pass. I can’t put 
it into words, but it was the feeling that brusque, 
rheumatic old Tippy with her hoe, stood for as 
fine a kind of patriotism as there is in the world. 
She’s just as eager to do some splendid, big, thrill- 
ing thing for her country as any man in khaki, yet 
all she can do is to whack weeds. I wish I were 
artist enough to make a companion piece for the 
poster I brought home in my trunk — a goddess of 
liberty unfurling a star-spangled banner across 
the world. I’d make a homely work-roughened 
old woman in her kitchen apron, her face shining 
like Tippy’s did last night, when she looked at the 
star and wished she could be the hero it stood 
for. 

I made up my mind to say something like that 
to her, something to show her how hne I think it 
is for a woman of her age to put in such valiant 


HOME-COMINGS 


193 


licks in a vegetable garden when greater things 
are denied her. But when I went downstairs and 
found she had changed from her garden clothes 
into her immaculate gingham house dress, and 
was stepping around in the brisk, capable way that 
used to make me afraid of taking any liberties 
with her, I couldn’t have made such a speech to 
her any more than I could have made it to the 
refrigerator. My first glance showed me she had 
lost her company flutter. I saw she would soon 
have me back in my old place of doing as I was 
bid and not questioning her authority, if I did 
not assert myself at once. 

The chance came while we were at breakfast. 
A man came with a great lot of blueberries that 
she had ordered last week. Not expecting them 
so soon she had promised Belle to spend most of 
the day in Fishburn Court, because the nurse 
wanted to get off for a while. She was dreadfully 
put out about the berries, afraid they wouldn’t 
keep. She was starting to carry them down cel- 
ler when I rose and took the pails away from her, 
and announced that I’d can the whole lot of them, 
myself. 

Goodness knows I didn’t want to. I was simply 
aching to get down to the beach and go for a long 
row, and look in on the neighbors long enough to 
say howdy to everybody. But having once said 


194 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


I’d do it and been flatly refused, I simply had to 
carry my point. I grabbed her by the elbows in 
a laughing sort of scuffle and sat her down hard 
in a chair, and told her to stay' put. To my as- 
tonishment, she gave right up, but for a reason 
that completely took the wind out of my sails. 

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I suppose you 
do want to do your bit for Uncle Sam. It’s about 
all a young thing like you can do, so I oughtn’t to 
stand in your way if you feel that way about it. ’ ’ 

Then I found out she has been canning and pre- 
serving everything she can get her hands on, as 
a patriotic measure, and she supposed that was 
my motive. It gave me a jolt to think that while I 
was saying: “Poor old thing, there’s so little she 
can do,” she was feeling the same pity for my 
youth and inefficiency. 

Many a time I’ve helped put up fruit, but this 
was the first time I’d ever been allowed the whole 
responsibility. The minute she took herself off 
I began. Miss Susan was upstairs, starting to 
pack her trunk, so I had the kitchen all to myself. 
It is an attractive old kitchen, every tin silver- 
bright, and all in such perfect order that I could 
go to any nail or shelf in the dark, absolutely sure 
of finding on it the utensil it is expected to hold. 

Just outside the screen door, on the back step. 


HOME-COMINGS 


195 


Captain Kidd lay with his head on his paws, 
watching every movement through his shaggy 
bangs. I think he is happy to have me at home 
again, but the house has been so quiet during my 
long absence, that my singing disconcerts him. 
He sleeps a lot now that he is such an old dog, 
and he couldn’t take his usual nap while I was 
canning those berries. At Harrington Hall I 
never could let my voice out as I wanted to for 
fear of disturbing the public peace. Now with the 
whole downstairs to myself, I sang and sang, all 
the time I stirred and sweetened and weighed and 
screwed the tops on the long rows of waiting glass 
jars. 

I was pretty hot by the time I came to the last 
kettleful. My hands were stained, and I had 
burned my wrist and spilled juice all down the 
front of my bungalow apron. But the end was in 
sight, and I swumg into the tune of ‘‘Tipperary” 
as the soldiers sometimes do on the last lap of a 
long march. All of a sudden, Captain Kidd, who 
had been drowsing for awhile, lifted his head with 
such an alert air that I stopped singing to listen,, 
too. He seldom shows excitement now. Then 
with an eager little yelp that was half bark, half 
whine, he bounded off the step and tore around 
the house like a crazy thing. 


196 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


That cry meant but one thing. It had never 
meant anything else since he was a puppy. Rich- 
ard was coming. 

He always heralded him that way. If I had 
had any doubt of that first little cry of announce- 
ment there could be none about the fury of barking 
which followed. That ecstasy of greeting was re- 
served for one person alone. It couldn’t be any 
one but Richard. 

A figure in khaki strode past the window, the 
dog leaping up on him and almost turning som- 
ersaults in his efforts to lick his face. Then 
splash went the ladle into the kettle (I had been 
holding it suspended in my surprise), and the 
juice splashed all over the stove. The next in- 
stant Richard was in the kitchen, both hands out- 
stretched to grasp mine, and we were looking 
questioningly into each others eyes. It was a 
long gaze, for we were each frankly curious to 
see if the other had changed. 

Barby was right. The two years had made a 
man of him. He was larger in every way, and in 
his lieutenant’s uniform looked every inch a sol- 
dier. He spoke first, smiling broadly. 

“The same old girl, only taller than Barby 
now!” 

“The same old Dare-devil Dick!” I retorted, 
“only ” I started to add “so tremendously 


HOME-COMINGS 


197 


good-looking in that uniform,’’ but instead just 
laughed, as I drew my hands away. 

“Only what?” he persisted in his old teasing 
fashion. But I wouldn’t tell, and there we were, 
right back again on our old squabbling grounds, 
just where we left off two years ago. 



CHAPTER XVIT 


BACK WITH THE OLD CROWD 

Richard couldn’t stay a minute, he said. It 
wasn’t treating his Cousin James decently to 
throw his bag in at the door and rush off up here 
before he’d barely spoken to him. But he never 
felt that he’d really reached home till he’d been 
up here, and he couldn’t wait to tell Barby about 
his good luck. 

He was dreadfully disappointed to find that she 
wasn’t at home. He wouldn’t sit down at first, 
just perched on the edge of the table, regardless 
of what the spattered blueberry juice might do 
to his new uniform, and hastily outlined his plans. 
He was so happy over the prospect of getting into 
active service that will count for a lot, that he 
couldn’t talk fast enough. We both had so much 
to say, not having seen each other for two years, 
that first thing we knew the telephone rang, and it 
was his Cousin James saying that dinner was 
ready, and would he please come on. And here 
we ’d been talking an hour and ten minutes by tlie 
198 


BACK WITH THE OLD CROWD 199 


clock, when all the time he “didn’t have a minute 
to stay,” and was in such a rush to be off that he 
couldn’t sit down except on the edge of the table. 
He couldn’t help laughing at himself, it was so 
absurd. 

Thinking about it after he’d gone, I was sure 
from the keen way he kept glancing at me that ne 
did find me changed, after all. His recollection of 
me didn’t fit the real me, any more than my last 
season’s dresses do. He had to keep letting out 
seams and making allowance for my mental 
growth, as I had to for his. That’s why neither 
of us noticed how time flew. We were so busy 
sort of exploring each other. That’s why I found 
myself looking forward with such interest to his 
coming back after supper. It’s like going back 
to a house you’ve kno'wn all your life, whose every 
nook and corner is familiar, and finding it done 
over and enlarged. You enjoy exploring it, to 
find what’s left unchanged and what’s been added. 

Miss Susan and I had a cold lunch together. 
Then it took me half the afternoon to put the 
kitchen back into its original order and get the 
blueberry stains off my fingernails. Tippy was 
pleased with the way she found things when she 
came back, though she wouldn’t have compli- 
mented my achievement for worlds. But I know 
her silences now, which ones are approving and 


200 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


which displeased. I know I went up several pegs 
in her respect. I heard her intimating as much to 
Miss Susan. 

I wasn’t out on the front porch with them when 
Richard came back after supper. A few minutes 
before he came I suddenly decided to change my 
dress — to put on a new one that Barby bought 
me the last day I was in Washington. It’s a little 
love of a gown, white and rose-color. I’d never 
worn it before, so it took some time to locate all 
the hooks and snappers and get them fastened 
properly. Richard came before I was half 
through. I could hear quite plainly what he was 
saying to Tippy and Miss Susan, down on the 
front porch. 

After I was all ready to go dov/n, I went to the 
mirror for one more look. There was no doubt 
about it. It was the most becoming dress I ever 
owned, so pretty and unusual, in fact, that I 
dreaded to face Tippy in it. She’d wonder why 
I put it on just to sit at home all evening, when the 
one I changed from was perfectly fresh. Too 
often she does her wondering aloud, and it’s em- 
barrassing. I was thankful they were sitting out 
on the porch. The rose vines darkened it, al- 
though the world outside was flooded with bril- 
liant moonlight. She wouldn’t be so apt to notice 
out there. 


BACK WITH THE OLD CROWD 201 


Just as I put out the lamp and started towards 
the stairs, I heard Tippy say something about 
moving into the house because the night air was 
bad for her rheumatism. I didn’t want to meet 
her in the full glare of the hall chandelier, so I 
waited on the upper landing long enough to give 
them time to go in. But Richard was slow about 
following them, and when I was half way down 
the stair he was only as far as the newel post. 
Glancing up, he saw me and stopped. I knew with- 
out his saying a word that he liked my dress. His 
eyes said it. He has wonderfully expressive eyes. 

It was nice to feel that I was making what the- 
atrical people call an etfeetive stage entrance. 
Quoting from a play we had been in together a 
long time ago, I held my head high in the haughty- 
princess manner and said airily, “Hath waited 
long, my lord?” 

He remembered the spirit of the reply if not 
the right words, and made up an answer that 
would have done credit to Sir Walter Raleigh for 
courtliness. We swept into the room, carrying 
on in a ridiculous stagey fashion for a moment or 
two, not giving Tippy a chance to comment on my 
dress. I saw her looking at it hard, but before she 
could get in a word edgeways, Richard asked me 
to go over to the Gilf reds’ with him. He met 
Judith on the way up here and she asked him to 


202 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


bring me over. She said some others of the old 
crowd Avould be there. 

George Woodson was already there, sitting in 
the hammock as usual, but with Judith’s guitar 
on his knees, instead of the ukelele that he used 
to tinkle. We could hear him tuning it as we went 
up the path. After we had been there a few min- 
utes Babe and Watson strolled in. Evidently 
they had had some sort of a quarrel. The effect 
was to make Watson unmistakably grouchy and 
Babe sarcastic. It was so noticeable that George 
said to me in an aside, ‘‘Babe is singing in sharps 
to-night, and Watty’s gone completely off the 
key.” 

AVe’d been away so long that naturally our first 
wish was to find out where everybody was and 
what they were doing. The conversation was 
such for awhile that Watson was decidedly out 
of it. He doesn’t know many Provincetown peo- 
ple, having been here only a few times on visits 
to the Nelsons, and now they’re gone he is staying 
at the Gifford House, where everybody’s strange. 
So he sat in one end of the porch swing, smoking. 
Sat in the kind of a silence that makes itself felt 
for the radius of half a mile. 

Nearly everybody brought up for discussion 
was away at some training camp or flying school, 
or getting ready for naval service. Naturally that 


BACK WITH THE OLD CROWD 203 


cast a gloom on George’s spirits, as he is always 
cursing his lot whenever he sees any one in khaki, 
because he feels left out of the game. I was feel- 
ing a hit gloomy myself because of the damper 
they cast, when in the midst of the questions about 
other people, Richard suddenly turned to Judith 
to ask about Esther. 

‘‘By the way, Judith, where is that fascinating 
little flirt of a cousin of yours?” 

It was the first time I had heard him speak her 
name since she left, two years ago. For him to 
be able to refer to her as naturally as that, just 
as he would to any other human being, certainly 
took a load off my mind. Whenever I thought of 
these two in connection with each other, I’ve been 
afraid that the jolt she gave him had shaken his 
faith in some things. But evidently the old wound 
had healed without a scar. There was nothing but 
plain, ordinary curiosity in the questions he asked, 
when Judith answered that Esther was married 
last winter. She married Claude Millins, the man 
she’s been engaged to off and on ever since she 
was a kid. 

Judith went down to the wedding. She said it 
was a brilliant affair. They started out with a 
rosy future ahead of them, but it was like that old 
missionary hymn, “Every prospect pleases, and 
only man is vile.” They’ve been having a per- 


204 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


fectly heathenish time ever since the war threw 
a bomb into their domestic relations. Claude is 
crazy about Esther, but he isn’t crazy about en- 
listing. He is a pacifist. She had forty-one rela- 
tives in the Civil War on the Confederate side. 
Over half of them were killed in the battle of Chic- 
amaugua, and she’s ashamed of having a husband 
who’s a slacker. She wants him to be a hero. 
He said wasn’t it “better to be a live dog than a 
dead lion?” and she said in that honey-sweet way 
of hers, “a yellow dog?” 

‘ ‘ Gee ! ’ ’ said Watson suddenly, for the first time 
breaking into the conversation. “Did they quar- 
rel that way before they were married?” 

Judith said, “Evidently. She always spoke of 
it as an off and on engagement.” 

“Well,” said Richard reminiscently, “she cer- 
tainly had me going some, but after all, I don’t 
Imow which she hit the hardest, old George here, 
or myself.” 

“Or John Wynne,” spoke up Babe, who was in 
the other end of the swing. “What’s become of 
that good-looking doctor?” 

Richard was the only one who could answer that 
question. By the queerest coincidence they had 
met in a hotel lobby in Boston, and had lunched 
together afterward. The doctor will soon be in 
France. He ’s to take the place of a Harvard class- 


BACK WITH THE OLD CROWD 205 


mate of his, who was killed recently when the Am- 
bulance Corps he was serving with was nearly 
wiped out. 

Babe said she wondered that he hadn’t gone 
over long before. She expected him to right after 
Esther broke up his life the way she did. She 
imagined he’d be like Francesco, in the story of 
Ginevra — “Francesco, weary of his life, flew to 
Venice, and embarking, threw it away in battle 
vdth the Turks.” 

‘ ‘ He isn ’t that kind of a man. Babe, ’ ’ said Rich- 
ard. “You haven’t got his right measure. He’s 
too big and too fine to fling his life away for a 
little personal grievance. It’s not morbid senti- 
ment but a matter of principle that’s taking him 
over. He asked for the place he ’s getting, because 
he thinks it’s unattached men like himself who 
ought to fill them. Neither he nor I have any next 
of kin left now, who are near enough to worry over 
us or to mourn very long if we don’t get back.” 

It did me a world of good to hear Richard speak 
of that affair as “a little personal grievance.” 
Evidently it didn’t hurt him in the least to recall 
Esther and the incidents of that summer. Under 
cover of some anecdote that George began telling, 
Richard said in an aside to me, “You remember 
that story Miss Crewes told us about him, Geor- 
gina — ^his doing the deed for the deed’s sake. 


206 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


He’s just like that all the way through, keepiug 
himself so modestly in the background that he 
never gets the appreciation that is his rightful 
due.” 

It seems so nice to have a little secret like that 
Sir Gareth story with Richard. I can’t explain 
just what it is, but I love the way he turns to me 
when he puts an intimate little parenthesis like 
that into the general conversation, just for me. 

Presently Judith mentioned Miss Crewes, and 
then Richard remembered to tell us what Doctor 
Wynne told him about her. He had news of her 
death recently. Two years of nursing at the front 
was too much for her. She died from exposure 
and overwork, and it was no wonder she went to 
pieces as she did, witnessing so much German 
frightfulness. She was in one of the hospitals 
that they bombed. 

Judith shivered and put her hands over her ears 
an instant. “Somehow we keep getting back to 
those awful subjects no matter what we talk 
about,” she said. “And George has been strum- 
ming nothing but minors on that guitar ever since 
he picked it up. For goodness’ sake, strike up 
something to make us forget such horrors — some- 
thing more befitting such a glorious night.” 

It was a glorious night. The Gilfred place runs 
right down, to the water. By this time the moon 


BACK WITH THE OLD CROWD 207 


was high overhead, flooding the porch steps with 
such a bright light one could almost see to read 
by it. 

We did read by it presently, when Lowry Gil- 
fred came spinning up on his bicycle. He always 
goes downtovm the minute he hears the night train 
whistling for the bridge, and brings up the Boston 
and New York papers. He held one up. The 
headlines were so big and black we could read 
them easily several feet away. 

‘ ‘ More atrocities by the Huns. Inhuman U-boat 
commander fires on life-boats escaping from tor- 
pedoed vessel.” 

“Well, Moreland,” said Watson, “that’s what 
we ’ll be coming up against in a week or two. ’ ’ His 
face was turned towards Richard as he spoke, but 
I saw him glance at Babe out of the corner of his 
eye to see how she took his remark. 

Richard answered cheerfully that he looked on 
the prospect the same way that old “Horatius at 
the bridge ’ ’ did. ‘ ‘ To every man upon this earth, 
death cometh soon or late,” and as long as he had 
to die some time, he’d rather go in a good cause 
than linger to a doddering old age, or be killed 
inch at a time by the germs that get you even 
when you do watch out. 

He was sitting on the porch railing with his back 
against one of the white pillars, and the moon 


208 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


shone full on his upturned face. Remarking 
something about the way he used to spout Hora- 
tius on Friday afternoons, when he w^as a kid at 
school, he went on repeating from it. The ex- 
pression on his face must have been the one Barby 
spoke of when she said he reminded her of his 
father in his inspired moments. He said it in a 
low, intense voice, as if he were speaking to him- 
self, and thrilled with the deep meaning of it : 

And how can men die better than facing fearful 
odds 

For the ashes of their fathers and the temples 
of their gods?” 

Babe said afterwards it made the cold chills go 
down her back to hear him say it in such an im- 
pressive way, as if he’d really count it joy to die, 
“facing fearful odds.” She was afraid maybe 
it was a sign he was going to. And she said that 
his saying what he did, as he did, suddenly made 
her see things in a different light, herself. That ’s 
why she got up soon after, and said that they must 
be going. She wanted a chance to tell Watson 
she’d changed her mind, and that he was right in 
whatever matter it was they’d been arguing about. 

But before they went, George Woodson started 
a new song that’s lately come to town. They say 


BACK WITH THE OLD CROWD 209 


all the soldiers are singing it. It has a catchy 
sort of tune you can’t resist, and in a few minutes 
we were all chiming in with him. It sounded 
awfully sweet, for George sings a lovely tenor 
and Richard a good bass, so we had a full quar- 
tette. It was just like old times. 

“There’s a long, long trail a-winding 
Into the land of my dreams, 

Where the nightingales are singing 
And a white moon beams. 

There’s a long, long night of waiting 
Until my dreams all come true. 

Till the day — ^when I’ll be — going down 
That long, long trail with you.” 

We sang it over till we had learned the words, 
and then we couldn’t get rid of it. It has 
such a haunting sweetness that Richard and I 
hummed scraps of it all the way home. After we 
said good night and I went up to my room, I could 
hear him whistling it. I leaned out of my window 
to listen. He whistled it all the way down the 
street, until he reached the Green Stairs. It 
sounded so happy. I wished Babe hadn’t said 
what she did about his facing fearful odds. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A WAR WEDDING 

Talk about a clap of thunder out of a clear 
sky — that’s nothing to the surprise Babe gave us 
the very next night. About nine o ’clock she called 
me by telephone to say : 

‘‘Listen, Georgina. Is Richard still there? Is 
it too late for you to come down for a few min- 
utes? Watson and I are to he married tomorrow 
afternoon. We’ve just decided. Everything’s in 
a dreadful tangle. We want you to help straighten 
us out.” 

I was so surprised I could hardly speak. Tippy 
thought someone must be dead from the horrified 
way I gasped out, ‘ ‘ Oh, you don ’t mean it ! ” The 
suddenness of it did horrify me in a way. It 
seems so dreadful to be snatched through the most 
beautiful and sacred occasion of one’s life so fast 
that there’s no chance to do any of the time-hon- 
ored things that make it beautiful and impressive. 
For all Babe seems so matter of fact she’s full of 
sentiment, and has always looked forward to do- 
210 


A WAR WEDDING 


211 


ing those romantic things that brides do, such as 
filling a “hope chest” with 

Stitches set in long white seams 
To the silent music of tender dreams. 

Hurrying up a wedding in one day in such a 
combination family as the Nolan-Dorseys would 
be like scrambling eggs. Of course, we went 
right down. 

We had had an awfully nice day together, ex- 
ploring the town to see how much it had changed, 
and calling on Uncle Darcy and dropping into 
the studios where we have been welcomed on Mr. 
Moreland ^s account since the first summer he 
joined the Artistes colony. We’d been in every 
store on Commercial street to speak to the clerks, 
and out to the end of Eailroad Wharf to see how 
many of our old fishermen friends we could find. 
Down on the beach an art class pitched their 
easels and went on painting their favorite model, 
a Portuguese girl under a green parasol, quite 
as usual, and we sat on the sand in the shadow of 
a boathouse and watched them lazily, as if there 
weren’t any Huns and their horrors in the uni- 
verse. 

It had been a peaceful day up to the time we 
reached Babe’s house. The tangle she spoke of 


212 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


was the usual kind in her family. Her step- 
father, Mr. Dorsey, is a traveling man. He 
couldn’t get home in time to give her away, and 
Rabe’s mother thought they ought to wait for him. 
It Avasn’t showing him proper respect not to; be- 
sides Jim wasn’t old enough to do it. Jim didn’t 
want to do it, but he objected to being thought too 
young, and Watson couldn’t wait because he’d re- 
ceived his orders. That’s why they were hurrying 
things up. 

He wants to be married in the Church of the 
Pilgrims because his people are the kind that’d 
feel better if it was done there. Circumstances 
were such that none of them could be present, so 
he wanted to do that much to please them. And 
Babe couldn’t be married at the church unless 
Viola would loan her her new white dress that 
Miss Doan had just sent home after keeping her 
waiting three weeks for it. Her own white ones 
were out of commission and she wouldn’t feel like 
a bride if she were married in anything but white. 
But Viola wanted to wear her own dress her own 
self, and be a bridesmaid. She always gets her 
own way when she cries, so she was beginning to 
sob on her mother’s shoulder when we went in. 
And Mrs. Dorsey was saying she didn’t see why 
they couldn’t be married right there in the parlor, 
either in the bay window or under the chandelier 


A WAR WEDDING 


213 


with a wedding bell hung from it. Babers shirt- 
waist suit that she graduated in was good enough 
for a home affair and could be laundered in a 
hurry. 

Babe wouldn’t hear to that because Watson had 
expressed his preference for the church and had 
such a good reason, and Watson was provoked 
because Viola wouldn’t give in to Babe. It was 
her wedding, he said, and ought to be run to suit 
her. 

Poor old Babe. Among them they worked her 
up into such a nervous, excited state that she was 
half crying, and when her mother said in an exas- 
perated tone — ‘‘Oh, these war weddings! Whj^ 
don’t you wait till it’s all over and he comes back 
in peace times!” Babe threw herself down on the 
library couch and wept. 

“How do I know he’ll ever come back!” she 
wailed. “It’s you who are making a war wed- 
ding out of it with all your disagreeing and 
arguing.” 

Then Mrs. Dorsey explained all over again to 
me the way she thought things ought to be settled, 
and Viola explained her way and Babe sobbed out 
hers, and' Jim made a few remarks till it made me 
think of the old nursery tale: “Fire won’t burn 
stick, stick won’t beat pig, pig won’t get over the 
stile, and I sha’n’t get home tonight.” 


214 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


It was awfully embarrassing for Watson and 
uncomfortable for Richard. Presently they dis- 
appeared — went out on the front steps for a 
smoke. When I suggested the different dress- 
makers who might be persuaded to rush some- 
thing through, there was a reason why each one on 
the list was unavailable. Miss Doan and the two 
next best had left town on a vacation. 

Then I happened to think of that evening dress 
Babe ruined up on Mrs. Waldon’s roof, leaning 
against the rusty railing. It had a white silk 
under-dress, and in a flash an inspiration came to 
me. With that silk slip for a foundation 1 would 
attempt to make that wedding gown myself, al- 
though there was less than a day in which to do 
it. I’d seen a lovely piece of tulle that morning, 
when we stopped in the Emporium. 

It didn’t occur to me at first what a daring 
thing I was offering to do, or what a mess I’d 
make of everything if I failed. I was sure of the 
needlework part, for Tippy began my sewing- 
lessons so far back I can’t remember the first one, 
and what passed mustei with her was good enough 
for any bride or anybody. And I’d made simple 
wash dresses under Barby’s direction. 

Babe accepted my offer with the sublime con- 
fidence and joy that Cinderella showed in her god- 
mother’s ability to get a ball gown out of a pump- 


A WAR WEDDING 


215 


kin, and then I began to have an awful panic. 
But there was no chance to back out. She rap- 
turously called Watson in to tell him that every- 
body could be happy now, for I’d found the end of 
the string that would untangle the whole skein. 

From then on “stick began to beat pig, pig 
began to get over the stile, and the little old woman 
got home that night.” During the next ten min- 
utes two people were routed out of bed by tele- 
phone, but neither one minded it when they found 
it was for something as romantic as a war wed- 
ding. Miss Clara, chief clerk at the Emporium, 
promised to get the store keys early in the morn- 
ing, cut off the goods with her own hands, and 
have it delivered to me by seven o’clock. 

The other was Mrs. Doan, mother of the dress- 
maker who had just left town. “Yes, indeed, we 
could have Sallie’s dress form,” she said cor- 
dially. “Send Jim right over for it.” 

The dress form was collapsible, so Jim brought 
it over in a box, but it w^as a very startling and 
human-like figure that Richard had to carry up 
the street for me over his shoulder. There being 
no time for Babe to stand for fittings herself, wu 
blev’^ up the dummy like a balloon, till it was ad- 
justed to fit the silk slip. Richard kept calling 
it Sallie Jane, and making such ridiculous remarks 
to it, that we were nearly hysterical from laugh- 


216 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


iiig when we finally started home with it. It was 
bright moonlight, bnt so late that we passed only 
a few people on the street. These few stared in 
open-mouthed wonder at the stiff lady in white 
thrown over Richard’s shoulder, and one man 
turned and followed us half a block to satisfy Ms 
curiosity. 

Tippy would have helped next morning, but she 
had to bring Belle’s children up to spend the day. 
Aunt Elspeth was very much worse. I took the 
dovmstairs guest chamber for my workshop. By 
five minutes past seven the tulle was spread out 
on the big four poster, and my scissors were slash- 
ing into it. From then on until noon I worked in 
nightmarish haste. Of course I couldn’t have fin- 
ished it if it had been satin goods or something 
like that, but the tulle was easy to handle, and I 
pinned and patted it into shape on patient Sallie 
Jane till it began to look like the picture I had 
in mind. 

Richard came up about the middle of the morn- 
ing. I heard him go striding through the hall. 
Then his laugh rang out from the kitchen where 
Tippy was letting the children help her make oat- 
meal cookies. 

Then I heard him coming back, and looked up 
to see him in the doorway. He only saluted and 
did not venture in, as I was down on my knees be- 


A WAR WEDDING 


217 


fore Sallie Jane, making the bridal skirts hang 
evenly. He could see it was a critical moment. 
He said he merely dropped in to report that every- 
thing was going smoothly at the Nolan-Dorseys. 
The license and the ring were ready, the auto en- 
gaged to take the happy couple to Chatham. They 
would proceed from there to Boston by rail next 
day. Judith was at the house now, helping the 
family keep their head between their ears, and 
the only trouble was the telephoning. The list of 
people who would be slighted if not notified was so 
long that Jim suggested sending out the to\vn 
crier, and being done with it. 

‘‘Poor Uncle Darcy,” I said. “He wonT be 
able to see the wedding. Aunt Elspeth is so much 
worse. He^s always been mixed up in the impor- 
tant happenings of my life, and he would have 
taken such pride in seeing us march up the aisle, 
you as best man and me as maid of honor ” 

Then I broke off short and whirled Sallie Jane 
around on her pivot as if I had found something 
the matter which absorbed my attention. But in 
reality I had just remembered that it was my 
eighteenth birthday, and came very near remind- 
ing him of the fact. To think of having forgotten 
it myself till the morning was half gone ! I had 
come to my “Field Elysian,” and it was a lonely 
place, for nobody else remembered. The surest 


218 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


sign that I had reached it was that I did not 
frankly proclaim the fact, frankly expectant of 
birthday offerings. I didn’t want anything if peo- 
ple had to be reminded of the date. I took the 
corner of a paper of pins between my teeth and 
stood np to pin the sleeves in place. 

Richard looked on approvingly. “That really 
begins to look like something,” he said. “Looks 
like a white cloud. Even on old Sallie Jane you’d 
know it was a bridal outfit. You’re a trump, 
Georgina, for rushing things through this way. 
Babe ought to be everlastingly grateful. But 
while it’s ‘Very nice for Mary Ann, it’s rather 
hard on Abraham.’ Do you realize I’ve only four 
more days left to spend in this old town? This 
wedding is knocking a whole quarter of it out of 
my calculations.” 

Something made me glance up. He was look- 
ing down at me so intently it flustered me. I 
found myself trying to pin the left sleeve into the 
right arm. 

“I don’t believe in these war weddings,” he said 
almost fiercely. “Watt hadn’t any right to ask 
her to marry him now and take such chances. 
Suppose he’d be killed?” 

“She’d feel that he was hers, at any rate,” I 
said between my teeth, still holding on to the 
paper of pins. “She’d have the memory of this 


A WAR WEDDING 


219 


A\'edding, and the few happy days to follow, and 
she’d have the proud feeling that she was the 
wife of a man who ’d given his life bravely. She ’d 
be giving something to the cause herself, a con- 
tinuing sacrifice, for it would keep on all the rest 
of her life.” 

“But suppose he wasn’t killed outright. Sup- 
pose he’d come back to her crippled or blinded 
or frightfully disfigured. He oughtn’t to want 
to tie her for life to just a part of a man.” 

Then I took up for Babe so emphatically that I 
dropped the pins. “Then she’d be eyes to him 
and feet to him and hands to him — and every- 
thing else. And she’d glory in it. 1 would if I 
loved a man as Babe does Watson Tucker, though 
I don’t see what she sees in him to care for.” 

“I believe you would,” he answered slowly. 
Then after a long pause he added, “It certainly 
must make a difference to a man over there to 
know he’s got somebody back home, caring for 
him like that!’^ 

He left in a few moments, and I had to work 
harder than ever for I had slctwed up a bit while 
we talked. The wedding was at four. I am sure 
I was the happiest one in the crowd, for not only 
was the dress done in time, it was pronounced a 
real ‘ ‘ creation. ’ ’ Babe never looked so well in her 
life. Judith had worked some sort of miracle on 


220 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


her hair, and in that simple fluff of white tulle 
she was almost pretty. 

Never did a Maid of Honor have less time for 
her own arraying. I hurriedly slipped into tlie 
same dress of rose-color and white that I wore the 
night of Richard’s arrival, and put on the little 
pearl necklace that had been Barby’s. When he 
came for me in his Cousin James’ machine he 
brought a big armful of roses for me to carry. 
It made me awfully happy to have him say, 
“Many happy returns of the day” when he gave 
them to me, even when he laughingly confessed 
that he hadn’t remembered the date himself. It 
was Judith who reminded them that the wedding 
day and my birthday were the same. Even so, it 
was nice to have the event marked by his lovely 
roses. 

Despite all Judith’s precautions we had a wild 
scramble to get all the little Dorseys corralled for 
a final dress review. Each one of them came up 
with some important article missing, which had 
to be hunted for. Then a sudden calm descended. 
We found ourselves at the door of the Church of 
the Pilgrims. We were going slowly, very 
slowly up the aisle to the solemn organ music, 
conscious of a white blur of faces on each side. 
The church was packed. 

There had been no time for a rehearsal, but, 


A WAR WEDDING 


221 


for once, Inck was with the Nolan-Dorseys. No- 
body stumbled, nobody dropped anything, nobody 
responded in the wrong place. As Jim remarked 
afterward, “We did real well for a bunch of ama- 
teurs. We flocked all right though not even birds 
of a feather; one man in naval uniform, one in 
aviator ^s, and one in civilian’s.’’ 

Jim gave the bride away. I was strung up to 
such a nervous tension for fear it wouldn’t go off 
all right that I never took a full breath till Jim 
was through his part, the ring on Babe’s finger 
and her bouquet safely back in her hands again. 
It was only at the very last when the old minister 
who was perfectly devoted to Babe began to falter 
througli a prayer, that I realized I hadn’t really 
heard the ceremony. It had gone in one ear and 
out the other, leaving no impression of its sacred 
meaning. 

But if I missed the impressiveness of it Babe 
and Watson did not. He was as pale as a ghost, 
and her hands trembled so they could hardly hold 
her flowers. It was a solemn time for them. Then 
it grew solemn for me, as a sentence of the last 
prayer caught my attention. 

‘'And take now, into Thy especial care ana 
keeping, those who go forth from this altar to 
defend us, both upon the high seas and in the 
houndless battle plains of the air.” 


222 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


He praying for Richard too. I glanced 
across at him and found that he was looking in- 
tently at me. I had never seen such an expression 
in his eyes before — a sort of goodbye, as if he were 
looking at me for the last time, and was sorry. 
It was the dearest look. Our eyes met gravely for 
an instant, then just the shadow of a smile crept 
into his, and mine dropped. I couldn ’t understand 
why that little half-smile should make me so sort 
of happy and confused. Then the “Amen!” 
sounded and the organ pealed out the wedding- 
march, and with my hand on his arm we followed 
the bridal couple down the aisle, and out through 
the door to the automobile, waiting to take them 
to Chatham. 

Once out of the door Babe wasn’t a bit digni- 
fied. In her hurry to get away before the crowd 
could follow and hold a curbstone reception, she 
chased down the long board walk leading from 
the church to the street so fast that Watson could 
hardly keep up. They didn’t pretend to keep 
step. She had a long coat and a hat waiting for 
her in the machine. She had kissed her family 
all around before leaving the house, so she jus^ 
piled in as she was, and began pulling off her veil 
while the chauffeur cranked up. 

“I’ll change at Chatham,” she called back to us. 

“No, Mrs. Tucker,” Richard remarked as the 


A WAR WEDDING 


223 


machine dashed off, “you ^11 never change. You’ll 
always be just like that.” 

“The whole affair has been more like a whirl- 
wind than a wedding,” said Judith as she joined 
us. “I’m limp.” 



CHAPTER XIX 


THE VIGIL IN THE SWING 

When I look back on that hot July day it seems 
a week long; so much was crowded into it. After 
the ceremony we took Tippy up home in the ma- 
chine with the children, and then went for a drive. 
I hadn’t realized how tired I was till I sank back 
into the comfortable seat beside Richard. Noth- 
ing could have rested me more than that rapid 
spin toward Wellfleet with the salt breeze in my 
face. As we started out of town Richard glanced 
at his watch. 

^^Only sixty-three hours more for this old 
burg,” he announced. ‘‘I’ve got it figured down 
to a fine point now. Even to the minutes.” 

“So anxious to get away?” I asked. 

“Oh, it isn’t that. I’m keen enough to get busy 
over there, but ” He did not finish but pres- 

ently nodded toward the water where a great fleet 
of fishing boats was putting into port. They filled 
the harbor with a flashing of sails in the late 
afternoon sunshine, like a flock of white-winged 
224 


THE VIGIL IN THE SWING 


225 


birds. “I’m wondering how long it will be before 
I see that again.” 

I answered with a line from ‘ ‘ Kathleen Mavour- 
neen,” humming it airily: “It may be for years 
and it may be forever. ’ ’ 

“Don’t you care?” he demanded almost crossly, 
with his eyes intent on the triple curve just ahead. 

“Of course I care,” I answered. “If you were 
a truly own brother I couldn’t feel any worse 
about your going off into all that danger, and I 
couldn’t be any prouder of you. And I think that 
under the circumstances we might be allowed to 
put another star on our service flag, one for you 
as well as for Father. You belong to us more than 
anyone else now.” 

you do that?” he asked quickly, and with 
such eagerness that I saw he was both touched 
and pleased. “It makes a tremendous difference 
to a fellow to feel that he’s got some sort of 
family ties — that he isn’t just floating around in 
space like a stray balloon. It’s a mighty lonesome 
feeling to think that there’s nobody left to miss 
you or care what becomes of you.” 

“Oh, we’ll care all right,” I promised him. 
* ‘ We ’ll be a really truly family to you, and we ’ll 
miss you and write to you and knit for you. ’ ’ 

He was in the midst of the triple curve now, 
with a machine honking somewhere ahead, but he 


226 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


turned to flash a pleased smile at me and we came 
very near to a collision. He had to veer to one 
side so suddenly that we were nearly thrown out. 
For two years he has been so eager to go over- 
seas that I hadn’t an idea he would have any 
homesick qualms when the time came, but to find 
that he was hanging on to each hour as something- 
precious made me twice as sorry to see him go as 
I would have been otherwise. 

As we came back into to^^^l\e glanced at his 
watch again but said nothing until I leaned over 
to look too. 

‘‘How many hours now?” I asked. “Only 
sixty-one and a half,” he answered, “and they’ll 
whiz by like a streak of lightning. ’ ’ From then on 
I began counting them too. 

There was a birthday letter from Barby wait- 
ing for me when I got home, such a dear one that 
I took it otf to my room to read by myself. The 
package she mentioned sending was evidently de- 
layed. As I sat in front of my mirror, brushing 
my hair before going down to supper, I thought 
what a very, very ditferent birthday this was 
from the one we had planned for my eighteenth 
anniversary. Still it had been a happy day. I 
felt repaid for my wild rush every time I recalled 
Babe’s face when she saw herself for the first 
time in her wedding gown. Her delight was pa- 


THE VIGIL IN THE SWING 


227 


thetic, and her gratitude will be something to re- 
member always, that and the fact that I was a 
bridesmaid for the first time — and a Maid of 
Honor at that. 

Suddenly I came to myself mth a start to find 
myself with my hair down over my shoulders and 
my brush held in mid air, while I gazed at some- 
thing in the depths of the mirror. Something 
that wasn ’t there. The altar and the bridal party 
before it, and the Best Man looking across at me 
with that grave, wistful expression that was like 
a leave-taking. And then his smile as our eyes 
met It seems strange that just recalling a little 
thing like that should make me glowingly happy, 
yet in some unaccountable way it did. 

Judith and George Woodson came up after 
supper. I was almost sorry they did, for Richard 
had asked me to play the “Reverie” that he al- 
ways asks Barby for. He was stretched out on the 
leather couch with his hands clasped under his 
head, looking so comfortable and contented it 
seemed a pity to disturb him. He ’ll think of that 
old couch and the times he ’s lain on it listening to 
Barby play, many a time when he’s otf there in 
range of the enemy’s guns. 

They stayed till after ten o’clock, talking aero- 
planes mostly, for George got Richard started to 
describing nose dives and spirals and all the won- 


228 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


derful somersault stunts they do above the clouds. 
He knows so much about machines, having helped 
build them, that he could sketch the different 
parts of them while he was talking, and he knows 
the record of all the famous pilots, just as a base- 
ball fan knows all about the popular players. 
While he was up in Canada he met two of the 
most daring aces who ever flew, one from the 
French Escadrille, and one an Englishman of the 
Royal Flying Corps. It was his acquaintance 
with the Englishman which led to Richard’s being 
assigned to the Royal Naval Air Service. He’s to 
learn the British methods of handling sea-planes, 
and he’s hoping with all his heart that he won’t be 
brought home as an instructor when he has learned 
it. He wants to stay right there patrolling the 
Channel and making daring raids now and then 
over the enemy ’s lines. 

It must have been torture for George to listen 
to his enthusiastic description of duels above the 
clouds and how it feels to whiz through space at 
a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour, because 
it was the dream of his life to get into that branch 
of the service. His disappointment makes him 
awfully bitter. Still he persisted in talking about 
it, because he’s so interested he can’t keep off the 
subject. It’s a thousand times more thrilling 
than any of the old tales of knight errantry, and 


THE VIGIL IN THE SWING 


229 


I’m glad George kept on asking questions. Oth- 
erwise I’d never have found out what an amaz- 
ing lot Kichard knows that I never even sus- 
pected. 

During the last few minutes of their visit I 
heard Tippy out in the hall, answering the tele- 
phone. She came in just as they were all leaving, 
to tell us it was a message from Belle. Aunt 
Elspeth was sinking rapidly. The end was very 
near now. Uncle Darcy had asked for Barby, for- 
getting she was away, and Belle thought it would 
be a comfort to him to feel that some of the fam- 
ily were in the house, keeping the vigil with 
him. 

Tippy had intended to go down herself as soon 
as the children were asleep, but little Judson kept 
waking up and crying at finding himself in a 
strange bed. He seemed a bit feverish and she 
was afraid to leave him. So Richard and I went. 
When Judith and George left we walked with 
them part of the way. 

I’ve seen many a moonlight night on the har- 
bor before, when the water was tui^ied to a glory 
of rippling silver, but never have I seen it such a 
sea of splendor as it was that night we strolled 
along beside it. It was entrancingly beautiful — 
that luminous path through the water, and the 
boats lifting up their white sails in the shining 


230 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


silence were like pearl-white moths spreading 
motionless wings. 

None of ns felt like talking, the beauty was so 
unearthly, so we went along with scarcely a word, 
until we reached the business part of the town. 
There the buildings on the beach side of the street 
hid the view of the water. Both picture-shows 
were just out, and the gay summer crowds surg- 
ing up and dowTi the narrow board walk and 
overflowing into the middle of the street were as 
noisy as a flock of jaybirds. George and Judith 
left us at the drug-store corner, going in for ice- 
cream soda. 

VTien we turned into Fishburn Court, there on 
the edge of the dunes, we seemed entering a dif- 
ferent world. It was so still, shut in by the high 
warehouses between it and town. We opened the 
gate noiselessly and went up the path past the old 
wooden swing. The full moon shining high over- 
head made the little doorway almost as bright as 
da>, except for the circle of shadow under the 
apple tree. Even there the light filtered through 
in patches. All the doors and windows stood 
open. A candle flickered on the high black man- 
tel in the sitting-room. In the bedroom be- 
yond the lamp on the bureau was turned low. 

Belle met us at the door, motioning us toward 
the bedroom. Coming in from the white radi- 


THE VIGIL IN THE SWING 


231 


ance outside the light seemed dim at first, but it 
was enough to show the big four-posted bed with 
Aunt Elspeth lying motionless on it. Such a frail 
little body she was, but her delicate, flower-like 
sort of beauty had lasted even into her silver- 
haired old age. She did not seem to be breath- 
ing, but Uncle Darcy, sitting beside her holding 
her hand, was leaning over talking to her as if she 
could still hear. Just bits of sentences, but with 
a cadence of such infinite tenderness in the broken 
words that it hurt one to hear them. 

‘‘Dan ’Us right here, lass. ... He won’t leave 
you. . . . No, no, my dear.” 

I drew back, but Belle’s motioning hand in- 
sisted. “Just let him see that you’re here to keep 
watch with him,” she whispered. “It’ll be a 
comfort to him. ’ ’ 

So we went in. When I laid my hand on his 
shoulder he looked up with a dazed expression till 
he saw who it was and who was with me. Then 
he smiled at us both, and after that one welcom- 
ing glance turned back to the bed. 

We went back to the sitting room and stood 
there a moment, uncertainly. Then Richard 
opened the screen door, beckoning me to follow. 
He led the way to the swing, and we stepped in 
and sat down, facing each other. It stood so 
close to the cottage that to sit there opposite the 


232 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


open window was almost like being in the |pom. 
The glow from the lamp streamed out across the 
grass towards usy dimly yellow. We could see 
every movement, hear every rustle. Belle and the 
nurse tiptoed hack and forth. Danny went out 
and came in again. Then they settled back into 
the shadowy corners. 

Somewhere away up in the town, a phonograph 
began playing ‘‘The Long, Long Trail.” The 
notes came to us faintly a few moments, then 
stopped, and the silence grew deeper and deeper. 
Nothing broke it except a cricket’s chirp in the 
grass, and now and then a half-whispered word 
of soothing from Uncle Darcy. He crooned as he 
would to a sleepy child. 

“There’s naught to fear, lass. . . . All’s well. 
, . . Dan’l’s holding you.” 

Already she was beyond the comfort of his 
voice, but he kept on murmuring reassuringly, as 
if the protecting care that had never failed her 
in a long half-century of devotion was great 
enough now in this extreme hour to push aside 
even Death. He would go with her down into 
the very Valley of the Shadow. 

As I sat there listening, dozens of little scenes 
came crowding up out of the past like mute wit- 
nesses to their beautiful love for each other. 
There was the day Mrs. Saggs found a night- 


THE VIGIL IN THE SWING 


233 


goM^n of Aunt Elspeth’s in the work-basket with 
a bungling patch half-stitched on by Uncle 
Darcy’s stiff old lingers, and what she said about 
those old hands making a botch of patches, but 
never any botch in being kind. And the day 
Father and I, waiting in the kitchen, saw her 
cling to him and tell him quaveringly, “You’re 
always so good to me, Dan’l. You’re the best man 
the Lord ever made.” 

I do not know how long we sat there, but there 
was time to review all the many happy days I had 
spent with them in the little cottage. Then some 
very new and startling thoughts came crowding 
up in the overwhelming way they do when one is 
droivning. It seems to me I grew years older in 
that time of waiting. I had alw’ays been afraid 
of Death before, but suddenly the fear left me. 
It was no longer to be dreaded as the strongest 
thing in the world, if Love could thrust it aside 
like that and walk on past it, immortal and un- 
afraid. 

I didn’t know I was crying till two tears 
splashed down on my hands, which were pressed 
tightly together in my lap. A little shiver ran 
over me. Richard leaned forward and took my 
white sweater from the back of the seat where I 
had thrown it, motioning for me to put it on. I 
shook my head but he kept on holding it out for 


234 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


me to slip my arms into, in that insistent, master- 
ful way of his, till finally I did so. I hadn’t known 
I was cold till I felt the warmth of it around me. 
Then I noticed that a breeze had sprung up and 
was stirring the boughs of the apple tree, and my 
hands were like ice from the long nervous strain. 

But even more comforting than the wrap which 
enveloped me was the inward warmth that came 
from the sense of being watched over and taken 
care of. 

The long vigil went on. Suddenly the nurse 
leaned over and said something. And then — Belle 
pulled down the shade. 

After a few moments Uncle Darcy came stum- 
blingly out to the doorway and sat down on the 
step, burying his face in his hands. Richard and 
I looked at each other, uncertain what to do or 
to say, hesitating as the two children had done so 
long ago, when the old rifle gave up its secret. 
But this time we did not run away. 

This time we went up to him, each with a 
silent handclasp. Then putting my arm around 
the bent old shoulders I held him close for a mo- 
ment. He leaned against me and reaching up 
with his stiff, crooked fingers gently patted my 
hand. 

“Aye,” he said brokenly. “She’s gone . . . 
but — her love abides! Death couldn’t take that 
from me!” 


CHAPTER XX 


THE HIGHWAY OF THE ANGELS 

It was so late when we started home that the 
streets were deserted. The only noise was the 
hollow sound our own footsteps made on the board 
walk. Even that ceased the last half of the way, 
for we crossed over and went along the beach, 
walking close to the curling edges of the tide. 
Several times we paused to stand and look at the 
path the moon made on the water — wide miles of 
rippling silver, like a highway for the feet of 
passing angels. 

I kept thinking of Aunt Elspeth as I looked. It 
took away my sadness to feel that she must have 
passed up that radiant road. And everything — 
the white night itself — seemed throbbing with the 
words, ‘‘But Love abides! Death cannot take 
that.” 

I think Richard heard them too, for once as we 
stood looking back he said, “Somehow that belief 
of Uncle Darcy’s changes one’s conception of 
death, just as that moon changes the night and 
235 


236 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 

the sea. It takes all the blackness out. It gives 
. . . Dad . . . back to me again. It makes me 
feel differently about saying goodbye to you 
all.” 

“I wish you didn’t have to say goodbye,” I 
exclaimed impetuously. “I wish that this awful 
war were over and you could stay right on here. ’ ’ 

“Without my having done my part to win it?” 
he asked in a reproachful sort of tone. 

“You’ve done jmur part,” I told him. “And a 
big one. And I want you to know before you go 
away what we think about it. Barby wrote to 
Miss Crewes all about what you did up in Canada, 
and said, *I am telling you this in order that you 
may have another Sir Gareth to add to your list 
of knightly souls who do their deed and ask no 
guerdon.’ Ever since then we’ve thought of you 
as Sir Gareth.” 

Even in the moonlight I could see that he was 
embarrassed. He protested that we were giving 
liim more credit than he deserved. Then to make 
light of the affair he went on about how he hadn’t 
begun to do his part. He couldn’t feel it was done 
till he’d bombed at least one Hun. “A hundred 
Huns” was his slogan, and the number he’d set 
for himself to get. 

We started to walk on again. I was making 
some teasing remark about his being a blood- 


THE HIGHWAY OF THE ANGELS 237 


thirsty creature, when I stepped on the end of a 
broken oar. It turned with me and almost 
tripped me up. He put out a steadying hand, 
then slipped my arm through his to help me 
along. 

“I know you’re tired,” he said as we walked 
on. “You had to rush through all that sewing 
this morning, and there was the excitement of 
the wedding and tonight — the waiting. It’s been 
a hard day for you.” 

His voice sounded almost as sympathetic and 
comforting as Uncle Darcy’s. Away out across 
the dunes some belated home-goer began whis- 
tling. Clear and sweet the notes came dropping 
through the still night, as if blown from a far- 
off silver flute; 

“Till the day when I’ll be going down 
That long, long trail with you.” 

Instinctively we both turned to look at that 
shining path on the water, as if that were the 
trail, and stood listening till the last whistled note 
died away. Then suddenly Richard put his hand 
over mine as it lay on his arm, and held it close. 
After that there didn’t seem to be any need of 
words. Somehow his very silence seemed to be 
saying something to me. I could feel it thrilling 


238 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


through me as one violin string thrills to the 
vibration of another. 

I know now, after the experience of that night, 
that I shall never be able to write the leading 
novel of the century, as I have long hoped to do. 
I shall never attempt one of any kind now, even 
a little mediocre one. And the reason is this: 

The greatest thing in the story of any life is 
that moment of miracle when love enters in and 
transfigures it. It is impossible to describe the 
coming of Dawn on a mountain-top so that an- 
other really feels the glory of it. If he has wit- 
nessed it himself anything one could say seems 
inadequate and commonplace. If he has never 
experienced such a revelation, all the words in 
the dictionary couldn’t help him to see it. 

If I were to put down here the few words 
Richard said as he was leaving me at the door, 
they might seem incoherent and ordinary to any- 
one else, but uttered with his arms around me, 
the touch of his lips on mine — ^how could one put 
into any story the sacredness of such an experi- 
ence? The wonder of it, the rapture of it? And 
even if you did partially succeed, there would 
always be people like Tippy, for instance, to 
purse up their lips at the attempt, as if to say, 
^‘Sentimental!” So I shall never try. 

When Tippy, in her bathrobe and with a can- 


THE HIGHWAY OF THE ANGELS 239 


die, came down the dark hall to fumble at the 
door and let me in, I didn ’t say a word. I couldn ’t. 
I just walked past her, so awed by the throbbing 
happiness that filled me that I couldn T think of 
anything else, and not for worlds would I have 
had her know. If it had been Barby I would have 
thrown my arms around her and whispered, “Oh, 
Barby! I’m so happy!” and she would have held 
me close and understood. But I felt that Tippy 
would say, “Tut, you’re too young to be thinking 
of such things yet.” She has shamed me that 
way, making me feel that she considered me a 
sentimental silly young thing, several times in 
the past. 

“Well?” she said questioningly, when I did not 
speak. Her waiting attitude reminded me that 
she was expecting me to tell her something. Then 
I remembered — about Aunt Elspeth — and I was 
conscience-smitten to think I had forgotten her 
entirely. It seemed ages since we had left Fish- 
burn Court, with the sadness of her death the 
uppermost thing in our mind, but in reality it 
hadn’t been more than a half an hour. But it 
had been long enough for the beginning of “a new 
heaven and a new earth” for me. 

My voice trembled so that I could hardly speak 
the words — “She’s gone.” Then I saw that Tippy 
attributed my agitation to grief. She questioned 


240 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


me for details, but there was little to tell. When 
we left no arrangements had been made for ihe 
funeral. 

'‘How did Uncle Darcy take it?” she asked as 
we reached the top of the stairs. I told her, re- 
peating his own "words. My voice shook again, 
but this time it was because I -was remembering 
the stricken old figure on the doorstep, pathetic 
loneliness in every line of it, despite the brave 
words with which he tried to comfort himself. A 
tear started to roll down Tippy ’s cheek. She made 
a dab at it with the sleeve of her bathrobe. 

‘ ‘ Poor old soul ! ’ ’ she exclaimed. ‘ ‘ Their devo- 
tion to each other was beautiful. Over sixty 
years they’ve been all in all to each other. Pity 
they both couldn’t have be^n taken at the same 
time.” 

A wonder came over me which I have often 
felt before. Why is it that people like Tippy, who 
show such tenderness for a love-story when it is 
flowing to its end in old age, are so imsympathetic 
with it at its beginning. What is there about it 
at the source that Youth cannot understand or 
should not talk about? 

At my door she waited till I struck a match and 
lighted my lamp. I wondered why she held up 
her candle and gave me such a keen glance as she 


THE HIGHWAY OF THE ANGELS 241 

said goodnight When she closed the door behind 
her and I walked over to the dressing-table, I was 
suddenly confronted by the reason. The face 
that looked out at me from the mirror was not the 
face of one who has just looked on a great sorrow. 
I was startled by my own reflection. It had a 
sort of shining, exalted look. I wondered what 
she could have thought. 

I hurried with my undressing so that I could 
put out the lamp and swing open the casement 
window that looks down on the sea. The air came 
cool and salt against my hot cheeks. The silver 
radiance that flooded the harbor streamed in 
across me as I knelt down with my elbows on the 
sill and my hands folded to pray. 

Presently I realized with a guilty start that I 
wasn’t following my usual petitions. I had 
prayed only for Richard, and then, gazing down 
on the beach where we stood such a short time 
ago, I re-lived that moment and the ones that 
followed. The memory was as sacred as any 
prayer. It was not for its intrusion that my con- 
science smote me, but it seemed wickedly selfish 
to be forgetting those whom I had knelt purposely 
to remember: Father and Barby, all those in 
peril on the sea, all the victims of war and the 
brave souls everywhere, fighting for the peace of 


242 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


the world. And dear old Uncle Darcy — in the 
very first hour of his terrible loneliness how 
could I forget to ask comfort for him? 

Stretching out my arms to that shining space 
above the water I whispered, “Dear God, is it 
right for me to be so happy with such a^yful 
heartache in the world?” 

But no answer came to me out of that won- 
derful glory. All I seemed to hear was Uncle 
Darcy’s quavering words — *^But love abides! 
Death cannot take thai!” 

And presently as I kept on kneeling there I 
knew that was the answer: “Love that beareth 
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things ’ ’ 
is God-given. Heartache and Death may touch 
every life for a time, but Love abides through the 
ages. 



CHAPTER XXI 


“pirate gold’^ 

If this were a novel instead of my memoirs, 
I’d skip now to Richard’s part of it, and tell his 
thoughts and feelings as he lay awake for hours, 
trying to adjust himself to his new outlook on the 
future. But I didn’t know about that till after- 
ward. It only came out bits at a time in the few 
hours we had together before he went away. We 
had so little time by ourselves. 

The thing that worried him was the discovery 
that he no longer wanted to hurry off to the front. 
He was still as eager as ever to do his part. It 
wasn’t that. It was me. He told me down at 
Uncle Darcy’s next morning. I was staying there 
until time for the funeral, doing the little things 
that Barby would have done had she been here. 
Belle had gone home, worn out, and Tippy Avas 
over there with her, getting dinner for some of 
the out-of-tovTi relatives who were expected on 
the noon train. It seemed as if everybody on the 
Cape must have sent flowers. The little house 
243 


244 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


overflowed with them. Richard helped me find 
places for them and carry out the empty boxes. 

Uncle Darcy was so wonderful. He went about 
just as usual, talking in cautious half-whispers as 
he always did when Aunt Elspeth was asleep, tip- 
toeing into the darkened room now and then, to 
lean over and look at her. Sometimes he touched 
her hair caressingly, and sometimes smoothed 
do'vvn the long, soft folds of her white robe. Once 
wlien I took in a great basket full of ferns and 
roses to put on the table beside her he looked up 
with a smile. 

“That’s right,” he said. “Fix it all nice and 
pretty for her, Georgina. Mother likes to have 
things pretty.” 

He was so calm, and seemingly so oblivious to 
the fact that she was no longer conscious of his 
presence, that we were awed by his wonderful 
composure. So when we were out by the pump, 
giving some of the floral designs a fresh sprin- 
kling, it did not seem out of place for Richard to 
ask me if I had told Uncle Darcy — about us. It 
might have seemed strange at any other house of 
mourning for us to put our ovm affairs in the 
foreground, but not here. 

I said no, I couldn’t tell anybody until Barby 
knew. She must be the very first. He said all 
right, if I felt that way, but we’d have to send a 


“PIRATE GOLD’’ 


245 


telegram, because he couldn’t go away till he’d 
claimed me before the footlights as well as behind 
the scenes. I didn ’t see how we could put such a 
thing in a telegram, but he was so determined 
that finally I consented to try. Together we com- 
posed one that we thought would enlighten Barby, 
and at the same time mystify the telegraph op- 
erator, who happened to be one of the old High 
School boys. 

When the noon whistle blew Uncle Darcy’s 
composure suddenly left him. He looked around, 
startled by the familiar sound as if its shrill sum- 
mons pierced him with a realization of the truth. 
It was the signal for him to wheel Aunt Elspeth 
to the table ; to uncover the tray Belle always sent 
in, to urge her appetite with the same old joke 
that never lost its flavor to her. It seemed to come 
over him in a terrifying wave of realization that 
all that was ended. He could never do it again, 
could never do anything for her. He looked at 
the clock and then turned stricken eyes on me, ask- 
ing when they would take her away. When I 
told him his distress was pitifuL It is awful to 
hear an old man sob. 

It sent me hurrying from the room, fumbling 
for my handkerchief. Richard followed me and 
put his arms about me. The cheek pressed against 
mine was wet too. 


246 GEOKGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


“Dearest,’^ he whispered, “that’s the way I 
care for you. That’s what I want to do — stay 
with yon to the end — ^be to you all he’s been to 
her. I canH go and leave you with so many 
chances of never getting back to you. I’m cling- 
ing to the few hours still left to us as desperately 
as he is.” 

At the funeral that afternoon, as we stood to- 
gether on the old burying-ground on the hill, 
listening to the brief service at the grave, such a 
comforting thought came to me. It was about the 
mantle of Elijah falling on Elisha as the chariot 
of fire bore him heavenward. He dropped it in 
token that a double portion of his spirit should 
rest on the younger prophet. I felt that Richard 
and I, in keeping vigil as the soul of Aunt Elspeth 
took its flight, had witnessed the earthly ending 
of the most beautiful devotion we had ever known. 
And its mantle had fallen on us. We would go 
down to old age as they had done. And we surely 
needed a double portion of their spirit, for we 
faced a long, uncertain separation, beset by 
danger and death. They had gone all the way 
hand in hand. 

After it was all over and the crowd straggled 
away we stayed behind with Uncle Darcy for a 
while, telling Dan and Belle we would take him 
home in the machine when he was ready to go. 


“PIRATE GOLD’’ 


247 


We left him sitting beside the flower-covered 
mound under a scraggly old pine, and strolled off 
to the top of the hill. Richard asked me if I re- 
membered that the very first day we ever saw each 
other he brought me out to this old burying- 
ground. He dared me to slip in through the 
picket fence and touch ten tombstones to test my 
courage. And after I ’d touched them I went tear- 
ing down the hill with eyes as big as saucers, to 
tell him there was a whole row of pirates’ graves 
up there, with a skull and cross bones on each 
headstone, and how disappointed we were when 
we found out that they were only early settlers. 

And I asked him if he remembered that the 
first compliment he ever paid me was that same 
day on our way home. I was so stuck up over it 
I never forgot it. It was, “You’re a partner 
worthing having. You’ve got a head/’ 

He said yes our partnership dated from that 
very first day. It certainly was a deep-rooted 
affair. Then I told him the lovely thought that 
had come to me about the mantle of those two 
old lovers falling on our shoulders, and he reached 
out and took my hand in the gentlest way, and 
said that all that they had been to one another 
we’d be to each other, and more. And then we 
sat there on the hillside talking in low tones and 
watching the wind from the harbor blowing 


248 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


through the long sedge grass, till it was time to 
take Uncle Darcy home. 

He was ready to go when we went down to him. 
On the way home he talked about Aunt Elspeth in 
the most wonderful way, as if he’d been up in 
some high place where he could look down on life 
as God does and see how short the earth part of 
it is. He said ‘ ‘ ’Twould be a sin to fret for her. ’ ’ 
That she was safe in port now and he’d soon 
follow. He was so glad that she wasn’t the one 
to be left behind. She’d have been so helpless 
without him. 

On the way home to supper we noticed an un- 
usual number of boats putting into the harbor. 
The sky was overcast and the wind was rising. It 
was a disappointment because we’d planned for a 
moonlight row. We could see at a glance theie 
wasn’t going to be any moonlight. When we 
reached the house we found that Miss Susan 
Triplett was there. She had come back to to^vn 
for the funeral and was going to stay all night 
with us. 

My heart sank when I thought of one of our 
last precious evenings being interrupted by her. 
She always takes the centre of the stage wherever 
she is. But to my unbounded surprise Tippy took 
Miss Susan upstairs with her after supper, to 
help her spread the batting in a quilt that she was 


^‘PIRATE GOLD” 


249 


getting ready to put in the quilting frames. It 
took them till bedtime. 

Richard vowed Tippy took her off purposely, 
out of pure goodness of heart, knowing that we 
wanted to be alone. I was positive that if she had 
thought that, or even suspected it, she wouldn’t 
have budged an inch. She wouldn’t approve of 
my being engaged. But Richard insisted that she 
was chuck full, of sentiment herself, in spite of 
her apparent scorn of it, and that she not only 
suspected which way the wind was blowing, but 
knew it positively. 

We didn’t have any difference of opinion about 
Avhat Barby would say, however. So I did not 
feel that I had to Avait for an answer to our tele- 
gram before I let him slip the ring on my finger 
Avhich he brought for me. It’s a beautiful soltaire 
in a quaint Florentine setting. 

‘‘It’s the one Dad gave mother,” he said, “but 
if you’d rather have it in a modern setting ” 

I love the tone of his voice when he says “Dad” 
that way, and I wouldn ’t have the setting changed 
if it had been as ugly as sin, instead of what it is, 
the most artistic one I ever saw. 

It was blowing hard when he left the house. 
The waves were lashing angrily against the break- 
water. We knew the fishermen must be expecting 
a storm. The night was so black we couldn 't see 


250 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


the fleets they had brought in, but the harbor was 
full of lights, hundreds of them gleaming from 
the close-reefed boats lying at anchor. 

It was not until late in the night that the storm 
struck. Then a terrific wind swept the Cape. 
Shutters banged and windows rattled. The house 
itself shook at times, and now and then sand 
struck the 'window panes even of the second story, 
as if thro'wn against them in giant handfuls. 
Once there was a crash, and a big limb of the old 
willow went down. It has been years since we 
have had such a storm. Part of the -willow went 
down that time. 

Lying there unable to sleep I recalled that other 
storm. I could remember distinctly old Jeremy ^s 
coming in next morning to report the damage, and 
saying it was so wild it was a wonder the dunes 
hadnT all blown into the sea. Some of them had. 
Captain Ames ’ cranberry bog was buried so deep 
in sand you couldn’t see a leaf of it, and there 
was sand drifted over everything, as if a cyclone 
had swirled through the dunes, lifting them bodily 
and scattering them over the face of the earth. 

I had cause to remember that storm. It buried 
still deeper the little pouch of “pirate gold” 
which Richard and I had buried temporarily, and 
we had never been able to find it since. For days 
we dug with a hoe and the brass-handled fire 


“PIRATE GOLD^» 


251 


shovel, trying to unearth it, but even the markers 
we had set above it never came to light. 

Lying there in the dark I could remember ex- 
actly how Richard looked then, in his little grass- 
stained white suit ’vi ,. i hole in the knee of his 
stocking. Tdiat a dear »>l!;le dare-devil he \\a'; 
in tliose days, always f. -ming to grief vdth his 
clothes, because of his thirst for adventure. All 
through the storm I lay thinking about him. I 
am so glad that I have those memories of him 
as a boy to add to my knowledge of him as a man. 
If I knew him only as I have known him since his 
return, a handsome young officer in his inmiacu- 
late uniform and with his fascinating ways, I’d 
be afraid I was being attracted by his outward 
charm, and might be disillusioned some day as I 
was about Esther. 

But in all the years we’ve been growing up to- 
gether I’ve had time to learn every one of his 
faults and short-comings. Though I’ve frankly 
told him of them in times past for his own good, 
I realize now that he never had as many as most 
boys, and he has outgrown the few he did have. 
I wouldn’t have him changed now in any way 
whatever. 

An attachment like ours that blossoms out of 
such a long and intimate acquaintance must have 
deeper roots than one like Babe’s and Watson’s. 


252 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


Theirs hasn’t any background, any past tense. 
Babe married him without having seen a single 
member of his family nearer than cousins, which 
is an awful risk, I think. Suppose one of his next 
of kin were a miser or a fanatic, and the same 
traits would crop out in him later in life. Know- 
ing Richard’s father as I did makes me feel that 
I know Richard in the future tense. They are so 
much alike. He’ll always keep that sense of 
humor which was one of Mr. Moreland’s charms, 
and the same feeling for things with old happy 
associations, like my ring. 

When I thought of that adorable ring I just 
couldn’t wait till morning to see it again. Reach- 
ing for the little pocket flashlight which I keep 
on the stand beside my bed, I sat up and flashed 
it on the stone, turning it in every possible direc- 
tion to see it sparkle. It was much more daz- 
zling under the electric light than it had been 
under the lamp. I wondered if it made Richard’s 
mother as happy when she wore it as it makes 
me. I wondered if she ever sat up in the dark 
to admire it as I was doing, and what she would 
think if she could see me press it to my lips in 
the consciousness that it is the precious link 
which binds me to Richard. I don’t believe she 
would think it silly. She would be glad that I 
care so much — so very much. 


‘‘PIRATE GOLD’' 


253 


Next morning Richard was over early to take 
me out with him to see how much damage the 
storm had done. The beach was strewn with 
wreckage, trees were uprooted on every street, 
and roofs and chimneys had suffered all over 
town. But the strangest thing was that we found 
our little pouch of pirate gold. It was like the sea 
giving up its dead for the dunes to give up the 
treasure we ’d buried in it so long ago. We hadn’t 
the faintest expectation of such a thing when we 
started out; merely thought we’d go over for a 
look at the place where it was buried. 

When we ploughed through the sand to the 
fringe of bayberry bushes and wild beach plums 
that was our landmark, we found that the last 
storm had undone the work of that first one. It 
had scooped out the sand and left a hollow as it 
used to be years ago. Even then we hadn’t any 
thought of really finding the money, but Captain 
Kidd was along, and just to give him some excite- 
ment Richard called “Rats!” 

Tliat started him to digging frantically, and the 
first thing that flew out from under his paws was 
one of the pieces of broken crock which we had 
used as a marker. Then we tried him in other 
places, poking around ourselves with sticks, and 
presently he gave a short bark and stopped dig- 
ging, to nose something else he had unearthed. 


254 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


It actually was the old baking-powder can. It was 
almost eaten up with rust, and the names and 
date we had scratched on it were almost illegible. 
But everything inside was intact. 

I watched Richard’s face as he unrolled layer 
after layer of tin foil that was wrapped around 
the pouch, and thought again how nice it was that 
I shared his memories. I could understand the 
smile that curved his lips, for I knew the scenes 
that tin foil brought back to him. He had been 
weeks saving it. 

“Off Dad’s tobacco,” was all he said. But 
more than once I had climbed the Green Stairs 
up the cliff to the bungalow in time to see the 
laughing scuffle which invariably took place be- 
fore it was handed over to him. They had been 
rare play-fellows, he and his father. 

In the pouch was the letter, the black rubber 
ring, the handful of change. “We’ll pass all that 
over to Dan,” I said, “but the gold we’ll divide 
and gloat over. ’ ’ 

But Richard insisted that it shouldn’t be di- 
vided. He wanted to take it down to the Arts and 
Crafts shop and have it made into a ring for me. 
Just a little circle, that I could wear as a guard 
for the other one. I wanted half of it made into 
some token for him “to have and to hold” but 
we couldn’t think of anything suitable. He 


‘‘PIRATE GOLD’’ 


255 


wouldn’t wear a ring himself, and there wasn’t 
time to make a locket. There’s so little that a 
soldier going abroad can carry with him. 

It was the artist who does the lovely jewel 
work at the Shop who settled the question. We 
had to take her partly into our confidence in order 
to show her how necessary it was to have the 
keepsake done before Richard’s departure. She 
was dear about it, and so thrilled with the romance 
of the affair that she said she’d sit up all night 
if necessary to finish it. Yes, she understood 
perfectly, she said. She would melt the two gold 
pieces together, and out of part would fashion the 
ring, just a little twist of a lover’s knot, and out 
of the rest — well, why not an identification tag? 
The gentleman would have to wear one anyhow, 
and, being an officer could have it of gold if he 
wished. 

Richard liked the idea immensely, but it gave 
me a gruesome feeling at first. There would be 
no need of identification tags, were it not that 
possible death and wounds and capture face 
every man who wears one. Besides it seemed such 
a cold-blooded sort of token to give to one’s best 
beloved, just starting off to the Field of Honor. 
About as romantic as a trunk check. 

But suddenly I thought of something which 
made me agree instantly. There was a name 


256 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


which I could have engraved upon the reverse 
side, which would make the little tag seem almost 
like a decoration, in commemoration of a noble 
deed. I managed to write it down and slip it to 
the artist without Richard’s seeing it. 

Now whenever he looks at it he will remember 
it is the name I call him in my heart of hearts. 
He will know that I think of him as my true 
knight, as worthy of a royal accolade as any of 
those who fared forth in Arthur’s time to redress 
the wrongs of the world. He is my ** Sir Gareth.” 



CHAPTER XXII 


“the maid who binds her warrior’s sash” 

I couldn’t tell Tippy. The way we did I just 
handed her Barby’s night letter without a word 
and Richard gave her his. She read them with 
no more change of expression than if they’d been 
weather reports. Then she said that she ’d knowm 
it all along. A wooden Indian couldn’t have been 
less demonstrative, but later I found that nothing 
could have pleased her more. 

Richard says she can’t help being born a 
Plymouth Rock. She’s like an ice-bound brook 
that can’t show the depth and force underlying 
the surface coldness. But her tenderness leaked 
out for us both afterwards, in all sorts of ways, 
and I began to understand her for the first time 
in my life. 

She watched me take down the service flag in 
the window and replace it with one bearing two 
stars, and I’m sure she read my thoughts. She’s 
always had an uncanny way of doing that. I was 
thinking how much harder it was to put up that 
257 


258 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


second star than the first one, because I hadn’t 
really given Father to the service. He was in it 
before I was born. But the second star was the 
symbol of a real sacrifice that I was laying on the 
altar of my country. There was no laughing this 
time, or joking suggestion to make a ceremony 
of it. I felt to the bottom of my heart what I 
was doing, and did it in reverent silence. 

Soon after she followed me to my room and 
laid a couple of books on the table, open at the 
places marked for me to read. I smiled after she 
went out when I saw that one was an antiquated 
volume of poems. All my life she has tried to 
teach me morals and manners by the aid of such 
verse as ‘‘The boy stood on the burning deck” 
and “Fie! What a naughty child to pout.” So 
I picked up the books wondering what lesson she 
thought I needed now. The poem she marked was 
“The Maid who binds her Warrior’s sash.” As 
I read I understood. Dear old Tippy! It was 
courage she would teach me. 

Richard was right. She couldn’t say these 
things to me, so she brought me the words of an- 
other to help me, knowing the lesson would soon 
be sorely needed. The other book was a new one 
she had just drawn from the library, the adven- 
tures of a young gunner in the Nav}^ He had 


“THE MAID WHO BINDS »» 259 

won the Croix de Guerre for distinguished service 
and escaped the horrors of a German prison camp, 
so he knew what he was talking about when he 
wrote the words she left for me to read. 

“When you say goodbye to your son or your 
husband or your sweetheart, take it from me that 
what he will like to remember the best of all is 
your face with a smile on it. It will be hard 
work; you will feel more like crying and so will 
he, maybe. That smile is your bit. I will back a 
smile against the weeps in a race to Berlin any 
time. So I am telling you, and I can’t make it 
strong enough — send Imn away with a smile. 

This is the verse : 

“The maid, who binds her warrior’s sash 
With smile, which well the pain dissembles, 
The while, beneath the drooping lash. 

One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles. 
Though heaven alone record the tear 
And fame shall never know her story, 

Her heart has shed a drop as dear 
As ever d-ewed the field of glory.” 

I didn’t realize then how hard it was going to 
be to live up to those quotations, but Tippy, with 
so much of her life behind her full of its hard 


260 GEORGINA’S SER^ncCE STARS 


lessons — Tippy knew and took this mute way of 
warning me. 

The storm did us a good turn in more ways 
than unearthing our buried treasure. It brought 
such cold weather in its wake that when we came 
in glowing from a tramp along shore iust before 
supper, we found a jolly big fire waiting for us 
in the living-room. Such a one, Richard said, as 
would warm him manj^ a time, thinking of it, 
nights when he was miles up in the air, numb as 
the North Pole. 

We had such a long cosy evening afterward, 
there in the firelight. 

“We’ll have it just like this in our own little 
home when I get back,” Richard kept saying. 
We planned the dearest house. We decided to 
make his Cousin James sell us his bungalow 
studio, not only because the Green Stairs run- 
ning up the cliff to it is the place where we first 
saw each other when we were infants, but be- 
cause it’s such an artistic place, and has such a 
wonderful view of the sea. It’s a place far too 
delightful to be wasted on a single person, even 
such a nice old bachelor as his Cousin James. 

We even planned what we’d have for our first 
breakfast when we started to housekeeping, vdth 
Aunt Georgina’s coffee urn shining at one end 
of the table and an old beaten- silver chop dish, 


“THE MAID WHO BINDS- 


261 


ff 

that is one of Richard’s memories of their studio 
days in Paris, at the other. 

“If I could only see that picture in reality be- 
fore I go!” Richard exclaimed — “if I could only 
sit down at that table once with you across from 
me, and know that it was my home and my little 
wife ” 

Then he confessed that he wanted to take back 
everything he’d said about Watson and war wed- 
dings. He believed in ’em now and couldnH I, 

ivouldnH I ? But without waiting to finish 

the question he hurried on to answer it himself. 
No, he mustn’t ask it. He wouldn’t. It wouldn’t 
be fair to me, young as I was, with Barby gone, 
nor to her. But if he could only feel that I really 
belonged to him 

I told him I didn’t see how rushing through a 
whirhvind ceremony as Babe did could make us 
feel we belonged to each other any more than 
we already did, and I couldn’t do it without Barby, 
but we could say the betrothal part to each other, 
and that would make him feel that we were al- 
most married. So we hunted it up in the prayer 
book and each repeated the part that says, “I take 
thee . . . from this day forward ... to love and 
to cherish . . . and thereto I plight thee my 
troth.” 

But after we said it I couldn’t see that it made 


262 GEOBGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


the thought of parting any easier. Really it 
seemed even harder after we ^d solemnly promised 
ourselves to each other that way. 

After a while he said there were several things 
he wanted to speak of before he went away. One 
was that his Cousin James has all his belongings 
in charge. Among them is a beautiful old Vene- 
tian jewel casket with his mother’s rings and 
necklaces and things in it. His Cousin James 
understands that everything in it is to be mine 
and he hoped that I’d wear them sometimes — 

even if — in any event He didn’t go on to say 

even if wlmt, but the unfinished sentence filled me 
with its unspoken dread, more than if he’d really 
said it. 

After a long silence he said lightly that there 
was some satisfaction in the thought that I’d 
always be comfortably provided for no matter 
what happened, and that I could have the bun- 
galow and the motor-boat and all the other things 
we’d planned. He’d made his will the day before 
and his Cousin James had promised to see it was 
carried out in every detail. 

At the thought of what his speech implied and 
the mere idea of me having or doing any of those 
lovely things without him, I couldn’t stand it any 
longer. I simply hid my face in the sofa cushions 
and let the dykes wash out to sea. It must have 


“THE MAID WHO BINDS- 


263 


fy 

broken him up somewhat himself, to see the way 
I took it, for his voice was shaky when he tried 
to comfort me. But it was so dear and tender, 
just like Uncle Darcy ^s that time he kept saying, 
“There’s naught to fear lass, Dan’l’s holding 
you.” Every word only made me cry that much 
harder. 

Presently he cleared his throat and asked if I 
supposed there was any powder left in the old 
powder horn over the mantel, and did I remember 
the time we fed some to Captain Kidd to make 
him game. He’d confess now, after all these 
years, he ate some himself that day when I wasn ’t 
looking, but its effect was about worn off by this 
time, and if I kept on that way much longer he ’d 
have to have another nip at that old horn or go to 
pieces himself. 

I sat up then and lauglied, despite the big, 
gulpy sobs that nearly choked me. For I had to 
tell him that I’d eaten some of that powder my- 
self that same time. I licked it out of the i)alm of 
my hand when his back was turned. And if the 
powder had lost its effect on me the horn itself 
hadn’t. The mere mention of it made me stiffen. 
Hereafter I’d be just as brave as that old Revo- 
lutionary grandmother of mine who snatched it 
from the wall with the musket, and hustled her 
Minute Man off with the one grim word, ‘ ‘ Hmrry ! ’ ’ 


264 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


I promised him that hereafter he shouldn’t sec* 
me shed another drop. And he didn’t. 

Mr. Milford came up for me early next morning 
to take me down to the station to see Richard off. 
Maybe it was because I had had that spell of \\dld 
weeps the night before, that I felt like the-morn- 
ing-after-a-storm, all cleared up and shiney. At 
any rate I sent him off laughing. He looked so 
fit and so fine, starting off on his great adventure 
like some knight of old, that I told him I pined to 
go along; that under the circumstances I’d gladly 
change places vdth him. I’d much rather be 
Richard Moreland than G. Huntingdon. 

But he said right before his Cousin J ames that 
he’d much rather I’d be Mrs. Richard Moreland. 
It was my blushing so furiously at hearing that 
name applied to me for the first time which made 
him laugh. Then there was only time to be caught 
up in a good-bye embrace before the train pulled 
out. He swung himself up on the rear platform 
just as it started. He did look so handsome and 
so dear and I w^as so proud of him in his khaki 
that there was nothing forced in the last smile I 
gave him. It was the real spangled-bannery kind ; 
such as shines in your eyes when the band plays 
martial music and the troops march by. Your 
heart beats awfully fast and you hold your 


“THE MAID WHO BINDS 265 


breath, but you have the feeling that in your soul 
you are one of the color bearers yourself. You 
are keeping step with your head held high. 

Afterwards when Mr. Milford helped me into 
the machine he said, “Georgina, you’re a trump. 
You wear your service stars in your eyes.” 

When I looked at him questioningly, wondering 
■what he meant, he said, “Oh, I know theyh-e 
bro-wn, not blue, but you showed my boy the star 
of ‘ true blue ’ courage in them, and I was horribly 
afraid for a few minutes there that maybe you 
wouldn’t.” 

He talked about ser-vice flags all the way home, 
for we kept coming across them in the windows 
in every street. Over two hundred men have gone 
out from this little fishing to\vn. When I told him 
how I felt that way, about “keeping step,” he said 
he wished I could make some other people he knew 
feel the same way. 

“There’s poor Mrs. Carver, for instance, cry- 
ing her eyes out over Titcomb and Sammy III, 
and talking as if she ’s the only mother in the world 
who’s sacrificing anything. If you could suggest 
that those boys would be a bit prouder of her if 
she could keep step ■with the rest of the mothers, 
make her sacrifice ■with her head up, it would do 
BS^r a world of good. She mustn’t fly service stars 


266 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


in her window unless she can back them on the 
inside with the same true blue courage they stand 
for on the outside — the kind that sends the men 
to the front.” 



CHAPTER XXm 


MARKED ON THE CALENDAR 

It’s queer what a way Doctor Wynne has of 
stepping abruptly into my life and out again. It’s 
been so ever since I found his picture in the bar- 
rel. A few days after Richard left he unexpect- 
edly opened the front gate and came up to the 
porch where Tippy and I sat knitting. I did not 
recognize him at first in his captain’s uniform, 
and no one could have been further from my 
thoughts. I supposed he had already sailed for 
France. 

Some business with old Mr. Carver, who is giv- 
ing an ambulance to the Red Cross, brought him 
to Provincetown, and, happening to hear that 
Miss Susan Triplett was at our house, he came up 
to say goodbye to her before starting to join the 
unit to which he’s been assigned. He was dis- 
appointed when he found that Miss Susan had 
gone back to Wellfleet. He said she was one of 
the few people left who had known his family 
267 


268 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


intimately, and who remembered him as a child. 
It gave* him a sense of kinship to have her call 
him /‘Johnny” in a world where everyone else 
said “Doctor.” 

That was enough for Tippy. In her opinion 
any man in khaki is entitled to all the ‘ ‘ sugar and 
spice and everything nice” the world can give. 
When she found that he has no home ties now, 
she adopted him on the spot. He didn’t know he 
was being adopted, but I did, just from the posi- 
tive tone of her voice. She told him her claim on 
him was about as old as Susan’s. She’d known 
him when he was a bald-headed baby — ^held him 
in her arms in this very house, and sat under his 
father’s preaching many a time in Wellfleet. And 
indeed he’d stay to supper. He needn’t think 
she’d let a son of Sister Wynne’s leave the house 
without breaking bread vdth her, especially when 
he was starting off to a far country where he was 
liable to get nothing but husks. 

If what Tippy wanted was to give him a little 
slice of home to pack up and take away in his 
“old kit bag,” she certainly succeeded. It will 
be many a moon before he can forget the table she 
spread for him, the advice she gave him and the 
sock she hurried to “toe off” in order that there 
might be a full half dozen in the package she 
thrust upon him at parting. An own aunt could 


MARKED ON THE CALENDAR 269 


not Rave been more solicitous for his comfort, and 
she did all but call him Johnny. 

It’s the first time I ever had any conversation 
with him more than a sentence or two. Now as 
he “reminisced” vdth Tippy, and told experiences 
of his boyhood on a AVestern farm and of his 
medical student days, I saw that the real John 
AVynne was not the person I imagined him to be. 

What a sentimental little goose I must have 
been at sixteen; truly “green in judgment” to 
liave woven such a fabric of dreams around him. 
Miss Cr ewes’ story started it, putting him on a 
sort of pedestal, and the affair with Esther added 
to it, till I imagined him a romantic and knightly 
figure, “wrapped in the solitude” of a sad and 
patient melancholy. The real John Wynne is a 
busy, matter-of-fact physician, absorbingly inter- 
ested in the war and keen to be into it, also ready 
to talk about anything from “cabbages to kings.” 
Yet I suppose if anyone had told me then that I 
was mistaken in that early estimate of him I 
would have resented it. I wanted him to fit the 
role I assigned him. It made him more interest- 
ing to my callow mind to imagine him like that 
king in the poem when, — ‘ ‘ The barque which held 
the prince went down he never smiled again.” 

He was so warmly interested in my account of 
finding his picture at that auction and keeping it 


270 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


all these years, that I took him across the hall to 
look at it. The thought came to me that mayb(‘ 
he’d like to have it, but when I offered it to him 
he said no, he had a more recent one of his mother, 
one more like her as he remembered her. He 
stood looking at it a long while and finally said 
it seemed so much at home there on the wall that 
he hoped I’d keep it there. It would sort of 
anchor him to the old Cape to look back and know 
that it was hanging in the very room where they 
had once been together. Then he added almost 
wistfully : 

^‘If she were here to wish me Godspeed, I could 
go away better equipped, perhaps, for what lies 
ahead.” 

Some sudden impulse prompted me to open the 
table drawer and take out the little service flag 
with the one star which I had thrust in there wdien 
I put up the new one. As I hung it under the 
picture I was surprised to hear myself saying, 
‘ ‘ See ! She does wish you Godspeed. ’ ’ 

It was exactly as if someone else put the words 
into my mouth, for I had never thought of them 
before, and I’m sure I never quoted Scripture that 
way before, outside of Sunday school. It gave 
me the queerest sensation to be doing it as if 
some force outside of myself were impelling me 
to speak. 


MARKED ON THE CALENDAR 271 


“Don’t you suppose,” I said slowly, “that if 
God so loved the world that He could give His 
only son to die for it, that he must know how’ 
human fathers and mothers feel when they do the 
same thing? Don’t you believe that He’d let a 
mother, even up in heaven, have some way to com- 
fort and help a son who was offering his life to 
save the world? The men in the trenches can’t 
see the stars we hang out for them here at home, 
but they feel our spirit of helpfulness flomng 
out to them. How do w’e Imow that the windows 
of lieaven are not hung with stars that mean the 
same thing? How" do we know but what those 
wdio watch and w’ait for us up there are not aiding 
us in ways greater than w^e dream possible ? Help- 
ing us as Israel w^as helped, by the invisible hosts 
and chariots of fire, in the mountain round about 
Elisha?” 

The tenderest smile lit up his face. “It’s 
strange you should have hit upon that particular 
story,” he said. “It w’as one of my mother’s 
favorites. She began telling it to me when I was 
no bigger than that little chap there, leaning 
against her shoulder.” 

Then he turned and held out his hand, saying, 
“You’ve given me more than you can ever know. 
Miss Huntingdon. Thank you for hanging that 


272 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


little service star there. She does say Godspeed, 
and its help will go with me overseas.” 

A little while later he went away, and I ’ve won- 
dered a dozen times since what made me say that 
to him. 

The month of Jnly in my 1917 calendar is a 
motley page, the first half of it being marked with 
a perfect jnmble of red rings and black crosses. 
They stand for all that happened between my 
home-coming after Commencement and Richard’s 
goodbye. When you consider that into one day 
alone was crowded my birthday anniversary. 
Babe’s wedding. Aunt Elspeth’s death, and the 
greatest experience of my life, it’s no wonder that 
in looking back over it all July seems almost as 
long and eventful as all the years which went 
before it. 

There is a triple ring around the twenty- 
seventh. I couldn’t make it red enough, for that 
is the joyful day that Richard’s cablegram came, 
saying that he was safe in England. It was also 
the day that Babe came home from her honey- 
moon, alone, of course. Watson joined his ship 
two days after they left here, and she visited his 
people the rest of the time. I’ve not marked that 
event but I’ll not forget it soon, because she was 
so provoking when I ran in to tell her my news. 


MARKED ON THE CALENDAR 273 


Not that she wasn’t interested in hearing of Rich- 
ard’s safety, or that she wasn’t enthusiastic about 
my engagement and my solitaire, but she had such 
a superior married air, as if the mere fact of her 
being Mrs. Watson Tucker mad'e all she said and 
felt important. 

She gave me to understand that while it was 
natural that she should worry about Watson, and 
almost die of anxiety when the mails were late, I 
oughtn’t to feel the separation as keenly as she, 
because I was merely engaged. 

“My dear, you can’t realize the difference until 
you’ve had the experience,” she said patroniz- 
ingly. I told her Richard had been a part of my 
life ever since I was a child, and it stood to reason 
that he filled a larger place in it than AVatson 
could in hers, having only come into it recently. 

It’s no use arguing with Babe. You never get 
anywhere. So I just looked dowm on my little 
ring of pirate gold and felt sorry for her. She 
has no link like that to remind her of such buried 
treasure as Richard and I share — the memory of 
all those years when we were grooving up to- 
gether. 

Early in August I had the joy of putting a big 
red capital L on my calendar, to mark the day 
that Richard’s first letter came. He was well, he 
had had a comfortable crossing, he had passed all 


274 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STABS 


his tests and begun his special training for the 
coast patrol. It is almost worth the separation 
to have a letter like that. Not only did he tell 
me right out in the dearest way how much he 
cares for me, regardless of the censor’s possible 
embarrassment, but every line showed his buoyant 
spirits over the chance that has come to him at 
last. He has wanted it so desperately, tried for 
it so gallantly and worked and waited so patiently 
that I would be a selfish pig not to be glad too, 
and I am glad. 

Judith asked how I had the heart to go into 
the tableaux that Mrs. Tupman is getting up for 
the Yarn fund. She was sure she couldn’t if she 
were in my place. She ’d be thinking all the time 
of the danger he is in. She wondered if I realized 
that the elements themselves conspire against an 
aviator — fire, earth and even water, if he’s in the 
naval force, to say nothing of the risk of the 
enemy’s guns. 

She couldn’t understand it when I said I wasn’t 
going to make myself miserable thinking of such 
things. And I’m not. He’s having his heart’s 
desire at last, and I’m so happy for him that I 
won’t let myself be sorry for me. 

His next letter was written five thousand feet 
up in the air. He went to twenty thousand feet 
that trip, but couldn’t write at such a height, be- 


MARKED ON THE CALENDAR 275 


cause his hand got so cold he had to put his glove 
on. Of course it was only a short scribbled note, 
but it thrilled me to the core to have one written 
under such circumstances. 

In the postscript, added after landing, he said, 
“I never go up without wishing you could share 
with me the amazing sensations of sUch a flight. 
You would love the diving and twirling and 
swooping. You were always such a good little 
sport I don ’t like to have you left out of the game. 
Never mind, we’ll have a flier of our ovti when I 
come back, and we’ll go up every day. We had 
an exciting chase after some enemy planes the 
other day. We sent down one raiding Boche and 
came near getting winged ourselves. I wish I 
might tell you the important particulars, but the 
things which would interest you most are the very 
ones we are not at liberty to write about. All I 
can say is that life over here now is one perpetual 
thrill, and it’s a source of constant thanksgiving 
to me that Fate landed me in this branch of the 
service instead of the one I -was headed for when 
I skipped off to Canada.” 

Even Richard’s reference to the enemy planes 
which came near ringing them did not fill me with 
uneasiness, because all his life he’s gone through 
accidents unscathed. Once when he was only half- 
grown he brought his sailboat safely into port 


276 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


through a squall which crippled it, and old Cap- 
tain Ames declared if it had been any other boy 
alongshore he’d have been drowned. That for 
level head and steady nerve he’d never seen his 
beat. Even back in the days when his crazy 
stunts in bicycle riding made the town’s hair 
stand on end, he never had a bad fall. So I didn’t 
worry when two weeks went by without bringing 
further word from him. But when three passed 
and then a whole month, I began to get anxious. 
Now that it’s beginning on the second month, I’m 
awfully worried. 



CHAPTER XXIV 


BRAVE LITTLE CARRIER PIGEON ! 

We have had another storm. It wrecked so 
many vessels and sent so many fishermen to their 
death that the dreadful tenth of August will go 
down in the annals of Provincetown as a day of 
dole for the whole Cape. So many families suf- 
fered from it. Most of them are Portuguese, 
and many of them are totally unprovided for, 
now that their breadwinners are taken. 

At first it seemed to me that I just couldn’t go 
down to the Fayals’, but Tippy, who had been 
several times, said I ought to, because Mrs. Fayal 
has always been so good about coming in for an 
extra day’s cleaning and has done our washing 
so many years, and I used to play with Rosalie. 
I didn’t know what to say or do that could be of 
any possible comfort. But Rosalie clung to me so 
the night that her father was brought home, that 
I sat with them till morning. 

There wasn’t a stronger, sturdier fisherman 
along the coast than Joe Fayal. I’ve seen him 
277 


278 GEORGINA^S SERVICE STABS 

go clumping past our house a thousand times in 
his high boots and yellow oilskins, and the flash of 
his white teeth and black eyes always gave the 
impression of his being more alive than most peo- 
ple. When I saw the white drowned thing they 
brought home in place of him I began to be afraid 
— afraid of the “peril of the sea.” If it can do 
that to one strong man it can do it to another. 

All night Mrs. Fayal sat in a corner behind the 
stove. Sometimes she wrung her hands without 
a word, and sometimes she kept up a sort of moan- 
ing whimper — “The War took both my boys and 
now the Sea’s takeri my man!” I can hear her 
yet. 

The days that followed were too full for me to 
worry as much as I would have done otherwise 
over Richard’s long silence. The poverty of all 
those desolate families came uppermost. A fund 
was started for the vidows and orphans, and all 
parts of New England came to the rescue. Art- 
ists, actors, the summer people, the home folks — 
everybody responded. A series of benefits and 
tag days began. I was asked to serve on so many 
committees and to help in so many enterprises 
that I raced through the days as if I were a fast 
express train, trying to make connections. I 
didn’t have time to think during the day, but at 
night when I lay counting up the time since I’d 


BRAVE LITTLE CARRIER PIGEON 279 


had a letter, the waves booming up against the 
breakwater took to repeating that wail of Mrs. 
FayaPs, and the fog bell tolled it: '^The Sea^s 
taken my man.’’ And I’d be so afraid I’d pull 
the covers over my ears to shut out the sound. 

Then seven letters came in a bunch. The long 
silence had not been Richard ’s fault, nor was any- 
thing the matter. There had simply been delays 
in the mail service. I vowed I’d let that be a les- 
son to me, not to worry next time. 

Barby came home late in the summer, and the 
very day of her arrival I had to go to Brewster 
on a “war-bread” campaign. I had promised to 
be demonstrator any time they called for me. It 
was tough luck to have the call hit that first day. 
I hadn’t had her to myself for ages, and after the 
wild scramble of the summer I longed for a quiet 
day in a rocking chair at home, where we could 
talk over all the things that had happened since 
the last time we were together — principally Rich- 
ard. 

If there were no war now, I suppose that’s 
about all we ’d be doing these days, spending long, 
placid hours together, embroidering dainty lin- 
gerie and putting my initials on table linen and 
such things. But there’ll be no “hope chest” for 
me while there’s a soldier left in a hospital to 
need pajamas and bandages, or one in the trenches 


280 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


who needs socks. The mid beast is not only on 
our door-steps now, he has us by the very throats. 

Barby came with the intention of taking me back 
with her, and Tippy, too, if she could persuade 
her to go. Although we ^re not the very important 
hub of a very important wheel as she is in Wash- 
ington, we are the hubs of a good many little 
wheels which we have started, and which would 
stop if we left. I was vild to go, but Tippy has 
no patience with people who put their hands to 
the plow and then look back. She kept reminding 
me of the various things that I have gotten into 
good running order, such as the Junior Red Cross, 
and a new Busy Bees Circle which Minnie Waite 
is running, under my direction and prodding. 
They are doing wonderfully well as long as the 
prodding never lets up. 

While we were debating the question it was 
settled for us in a most unexpected way. Old Mr. 
Carver telephoned that he needed me dreadfully 
in the office. Could I come and help him hold the 
fort for awhile? His son was very ill and had 
been taken to Boston for an operation. The draft 
had called so many men that practically the whole 
office force was new, and his stenographer had 
just left to take a government position. 

Much as Barby wanted me with her, she said 
that that settled it. Nothing a girl of my age 


BRAVE LITTLE CARRIER PIGEON 281 


could find to do in Washington was as important 
as that. Fish is a big item in the Nation’s food 
supply and anything I could do to help carry on 
that business helped carry on the war. Also some 
of our income depended on the success of the 
Plant, and if old Mr. Sammy broke down under 
the responsibility, strangers would have to step 
in. Besides, Father would be gratified to have 
me called on in the emergency, just as Titcomb 
and Sammy III would have been if they were not 
in training camp. 

It was wonderful the way that old man rose up 
and took the reins again, after having been little 
more than a figurehead in the business for some 
years. He seemed to be in a dozen places at once, 
and he found many places to use me besides at 
the typewriter; sending me to bank, and helping 
the new bookkeeper fill out checks for the pay- 
roll, etc. I had the surprise of my life when I 
found my own name on the pay-roll. I had gone 
in to help out in the emergency, just as I would 
have gone to a neighbor’s house in time of sick- 
ness. Also it was partly for our own interests, 
and I was being more than compensated by the 
feeling that I was doing something worth while 
filling in in place of drafted employees. I had no 
thought of being paid for it, nor of being wanted 
more than a few weeks. 


282 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


But Mr. Carver said I was worth more to him 
than an ordinary stenographer, even if I had for- 
gotten a lot and lost my speed. I could answer 
many of the letters without dictation, and I knew 
so much of the inside workings of the business, he 
could trust me with confidential matters, and he 
could blow off steam to me when things went 
wrong. In other words, I could keep up his 
morale. Poor old fellow, he needed to have some- 
body keep it up, as time proved. His son had a 
relapse and there were weeks when he was des- 
perately worried over his condition. He blew off 
steam principally about his daughter-in-law, whom 
he held responsible for the relapse. 

“Always a-crying and a-f retting about those 
boys, ’ ’ he would fume. * ‘ Min ’s a good woman and 
a good mother, but she’s a selfish slacker with 
Sammy. Doesn’t seem to think that a father has 
any feelings. Doesn’t realize that those boys are 
the apple of his eye. All her goings on about 
them, and how it’s killing her, knowing they will 
surely be killed, when he’s as weak as he is — it’s 
a downright shame. She’s only one of many, why 
can’t she do like a million other mothers, keep her 
own hurt out of sight, at least till his life’s out of 
danger.” 

Well, when I found I was to be paid for my 
work, that he really thought I was worth the sal- 


BRAVE LITTLE CARRIER PIGEON 283 


ary the other girl got, and that he wanted to keep 
me permanently, I was the happiest creature that 
ever banged the keys of a typewriter. For while 
I banged them I was counting up all the Liberty 
Bonds I could buy in the course af a year, and how 
much I’d have for the Red Cross, and how much 
for all the other things I wanted to do. Of course, 
IVe always had my allowance, but it’s nothing to 
the bliss of earning money with your own fingers, 
to do exactly as you please with. There is no 
other sensation in the whole universe so gratify- 
ing, so satisfying and so beatifying ! 

When the noon whistle blew I ran down the 
'wharf and all the way home to tell Barby, then 
I put a big red ring round the date on the calen- 
dar. Before nightfall I put another ring around 
that one, for the postman brought me a long letter 
from Richard, a letter that made me so happy I 
felt like putting a red ring around the whole 
world. 

It was somewhat of a shock to find that it was 
written in a hospital, although he assured me in 
the very first paragraph that he was perfectly 
well, and over all the ill effects, before he went on 
to say ill effects of what. This is part of it: 

^‘Lieutenant Robbins and I went out for an ob- 
servation flight over the enemy ports last Monday. 
Coming back something went wrong with the en- 


284 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


gine and we were compelled to drop at once to the 
sea. It was unnsually rough and the waves so 
high there was danger of our light seaplane being 
beaten to pieces before we could be rescued. 
There was one chance in a thousand that some 
cruising patrol vessel might happen along near 
enough to sight us, but there were all sorts of 
chances a submarine might get us first. The wire- 
less apparatus wouldn’t work. "We had been fly- 
ing so high to get out of the bumps of air currents, 
and had been up so long that we were not in any 
shape to stand a long strain. Our chief hope of 
rescue was in the little carrier pigeon we had with 
us. We always take one, but this one had never 
made a trial trip as long as the one it would have 
to take now, and we didn ’t know whether it would 
fail us or not. 

Imagine us tossing about in that frail bit of 
wood and canvas, the waves washing over us at 
intervals, and land nowhere to be seen, watching 
that white speck wing its way out of sight. There 
Avas a Avhile there when I’d have been willing to 
change places with old Noah, even if I had to 
crowd in with the whole Zoo.^ Well, we tossed 
around there for ages, it seemed to me, wet to the 
skin and chilled to the bone. All that night, all 
next day, and till dark again, we hung on des- 
perately before a searchlight swept across us,' and 


BRAVE LITTLE CARRIER PIGEON 285 


we saw a cruiser coming to our rescue. It had 
been hunting us all that time, for the bird went 
straight as an arrow with our S. 0. S. call. 

“The other man was past talking when they 
found us, and I could barely chatter. We were 
both so exhausted we had to be hauled aboard like 
a couple of water-soaked logs. But a while in the 
hospital has put us back to normal again, and here 
we are as good as new and ready to go up again. 
We report for duty in the morning. 

“It bowled me over when I heard what hap- 
pened to our brave little pigeon. Some fool took 
a shot at it, somewhere near the station probably, 
for it managed to keep going till it got home. 
Then, just as it reached the floor of its loft, it fell 
dead. A bell always rings as a carrier alights on 
the balanced platform. When the attendant an- 
swered the summons he found the pigeon lying 
there, one foot shot away, and blood on its little 
white breast. It had managed to fly the last part 
of its way, mortally wounded. Lucky for us it 
wasn’t the leg with the message that was hit. I 
tell you it makes me feel mighty serious to think 
that but for those little wings, faithful to the last 
beat, I wouldn’t be writing this letter at this 
present moment of A. D. 1917. 

“Two things kept coming into my mind, while 
numb and exhausted. I clung to that busted plane, 


286 GEOEGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


expecting every minute it would give way under 
us. I saw that old wooden figurehead of “Hope’^ 
that sits up on the roof of the Tupman^s portico 
at home. Probably I was going a bit nutty, for I 
could see it as plain as day. It opened its mouth 
and called to me over and over, that saying of 
Uncle Darcy’s that you are always throwing at 
people. ‘As long as a man keeps hope at the prow 
he keeps afloat.’ It kept holding its old green, 
wooden wreath out at me as if it were a life pre- 
server, and I’ll give you my word it shouted loud 
enough for me to hear across the noise of the 
wind, ‘as long as a man’ — ‘as long as a man,’ until 
I began to try to concentrate my mind on what it 
was saying. I actually believe the illusion or 
whatever it was helped me to hold on, for I began 
to obey orders. I hoped that the bird would reach 
home and hoped it so hard and long that it kept 
my wits awake. I was just at the point of letting 
go from sheer exhaustion and dropping into the 
sea, when it loomed up on the horizon. 

“Then a star came out in the sky, and I thought 
in a hazy way of the one in your service flag that 
stands for me, and I felt that if I didn’t manage 
to hang on and get back to you in some way, you ’d 
think I wasn’t ‘true blue.’ Then as I kept on 
staring at it, gradually I began to confuse it with 
you. But that’s not to be wondered at. Ever 


BRAVE LITTLE CARRIER PIGEON 287 


since IVe known you IVe unconsciously steered 
my course by you. You’re so dependable. That’s 
one of your finest traits. No matter what happens 
you’ll just go around in the circle of your days, 
true to your ideals and your sense of duty. 

“And though everything was getting sort of 
confused to me out there m the black water, star- 
ing death in the face, there was an underlying 
comfort in the belief that even if I didn’t get back 
you wouldn’t go into a cloud of mourning for the 
rest of your days. You’d live out your life as it 
was intended, just like that star. I saw it again 
last night from the hospital window. It rises 
here before daylight has entirely faded. The as- 
tronomers may call it Hesperus if they want to, 
but I’ll never see it again without calling it you.” 

I have read that letter till I know it by heart. 
It is getting worn in the creases. But last night 
when the tolling of the fog-bell awakened me, I 
groped for it under my pillow and read it once 
more by the glow of my little flashlight. I wanted 
to see the words again in his own handwriting. 
I cannot read often enough the part that calls me 
‘ ‘ Star. ’ ’ That has always been the most beautiful 
of names to me, even when I gave it to one who 
wasn’t worthy of it. I wonder if it would be pos- 
sible to live up to it, though, if Richard should 
never come back to me. How could I endure the 


288 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 

ordinary orbit of my days ? Yet how could I dis- 
appoint him? 

Next day a package came which should have 
reached me with the letter. It was the little link 
of aluminum they took from the leg of the dead 
pigeon. Fastened to it was the cartridge that 
held the message. Brave little bird ! It gave its 
life in the cause of liberty just as truly as any 
man in the trenches. I wish its deed could be im- 
mortalized in some way. It makes me shudder 
to think on what a frail thing Richard’s life de- 
pended, just those little white wings, speeding 
through trackless space on their mission of res- 
cue. 



CHAPTER XXV 


‘ ‘ MISSING ’ ’ 

January 1, 1918. — I came up to my room to- 
night, thinking I’d start the New Year by bringing 
this record up to date; but when I look back on 
the long five months to be filled in, the task seems 
hopeless. It was Thanksgiving before Mr. Sammy 
was able to come back to work. Since then I’ve 
had shorter hours at the office, because they don’t 
have so much work for a stenographer in the win- 
ter, but the extra time outside has been taken up 
by one breathless chase after another. When it 
isn’t selling Liberty Bonds it is distributing leaf- 
lets about food conservation and the crime of 
wasting. Or it’s a drive for a million more Red 
Cross members or a hurry call for surgical dress- 
ings. Then every minute in between it ’s knit, knit, 
knit everlastingly. 

Barby did not come home Christmas, and we 
did not keep the day for ourselves. We had our 
hands full doing for the families of the fishermen 
who were drowned last summer, and for the boys 
289 


290 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


at the front and in the camps at home. I hope 
Richard got his box all right, and that Doctor 
John Wynne enjoyed the one Tippy packed for 
him, and the round-robin letter that Miss Susan 
and some of the Wellfleet people sent him. They 
started on their way before Thanksgiving. 

I saw “Cousin James” a few minutes to-day. 
He came down to take a look at his premises. The 
bungalow has been boarded up ever since last 
fall, when he joined the class of “a dollar a year” 
men, working for the government. We had such 
a good time talking about Richard. He’s so opti- 
mistic about the war ending soon, that he left, me 
feeling more light-hearted than I’ve been for 
months. It will, indeed, be a happy New Year if 
it brings us peace. 

Washington’s Birthday. Shades of Valley 
Forge! What a mnter this is! It will go down 
in history with its wheatless and meatless days, 
and now that the fuel shortage is pinching all 
classes of people alike, the ant as well as the grass- 
hopper, the heatless days make the situation al- 
most hopeless. 

Tippy and I are living mostly in the kitchen 
now, because we are nearly at the end of our coal 
supply, and the railroads are not able to bring in 
any more. The open wood fires make little im- 


‘‘MISSING’' 


n 

291 

pression on the general iciness of the house. I 
am sitting up in my room to-night with furs and 
arctics on, and a big lamp burning to supplement 
the eiforts of a little coal-oil heater. With all that 
it’s so cold that I can see my breath. My fingers 
are so numb that I can scarcely manage my pen, 
but I must make a note of the news which came 
to-day. It’s about Doctor Wynne. 

In January Tippy had a letter from him, a 
charmingly written account of Christmas in the 
trenches, and a grateful acknowledgment of the 
box and the letter. This morning a small package 
came to me, addressed in a strange hand. An 
English nurse sent it. Inside she wrote : / '-j 

“Captain John Wynne asked me to send you 
the enclosed. He was in this hospital three w^eeks, 
and died last night from the effect of injuries re- 
ceived in doing one of the bravest things the war 
has yet called forth. He faced what seemed to be 
instant and inevitable death to avert an explosion 
that would have killed his Major and many men 
with him. In the attempt he was so badljr 
wounded that it was thought he could not live to 
reach the hospital. But maimed and shattered 
as he was, he lived until last night. 

“He was one of the most efficient surgeons we 
had at the front, and one of the best beloved. His 
fortitude through his time of intense suffering was 


292 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


a marvel to the whole hospital staff, accustomed 
as we are to nurse brave men. It really seemed 
as if he were sustained by some power other than ■ 
mere human endurance, some strength of the spirit 
few mortals attain. 

“It was a source of regret to all who knew of his 
case that the decoration awarded him did not ar- 
rive until after he lapsed into unconsciousness. 
But he knew he was to receive it. His Colonel 
told him he was to have the highest award for 
valor that your country bestows. He had already 
told me what disposition to make of his effects, 
and when I asked him in regard to the expected 
decoration he gave me your address whispering, 
‘She will know.’ ” 

I did know. It is hanging now where he knew I 
would put it. This afternoon when I came home 
I brought with me a little gold star to take the 
place of the blue one on the service flag under his 
mother’s picture. And over it I hung the medal — 
that other star, bronze and laurel-wreathed, with 
its one word “Valor,” surmounted by its eagle 
and its bit of ribbon. 

Tippy, watching me, suddenly buried her face 
in her apron and went out of the room, crying as 
I have never seen her cry before. I knew it wasn ’t 
the thought that he was gone which hurt her so 
keenly. It was the fact that the little token of his 


“ MISSING 


293 


country’s appreciation reached him too late. He 
missed the comfort of it himself, and there was 
no one of his own left to know the honor done him 
and to take pride in it. 

I had been feeling the hurt of it myself, ever 
since the news came. But it left me as I stood 
there, looking at the pictures in the little antique 
frame. The winter sunset, streaming red across 
the icicles outside the western window, touched 
everything in the room with a tinge of rose. It 
lighted up both faces, and, as I looked at his, I 
whispered through tears: 

“What does a little guerdon matter to a soul 
like yours, John Wynne? The deed was all you 
cared for.” And when I looked into his mother’s 
face and recalled what the nurse had written, I 
dried my eyes and smiled into her eyes, that were 
looking so steadfastly out at me. I knew she had 
helped him at the last. In some way her comfort 
had been with him, as the hosts “were round about 
Elisha in the mountain.” 

St. Patrick’s Day. March came in like a lion, 
but we’re comfortable now, thank goodness, in 
spite of the fact that the Avinds are still keen and 
there is much ice in the harbor. The coal cars 
reached town at last, and the big base-burner in 
the hall sends waves of delicious warmth all 


294 GEORGINA^S SERVICE STARS 


through the house. This past winter has been a 
nightmare of discomfort for nearly everybody. 

Babe says her experiences since 1918 set in 
would make the angels weep. She’s been doing 
the housekeeping since New Year, because her 
mother simply cannot adjust herself to war con- 
ditions. Mrs. Dorsey announced that she was 
born extravagant and it wasn’t her nature to save, 
but if Babe thought it was her duty and was will- 
ing to undertake it, she’d put up with the results 
no matter how harrowing. They get along pretty 
well when Mr. Dorsey is off on his trips, but I 
imagine harrowing is the right word for it when 
he’s at home. He simply won’t eat cornbread, 
and he swears at the mere sight of meat substi- 
tutes, such as mock turkey made of beans and pea- 
nut butter and things. 

Babe, having married into the Navy, feels that 
she is under special obligation to Hooverize to the 
limit. She wants to end the war as soon as pos- 
sible on Watson’s account. In fact, she makes 
such a personal matter of it that she’s getting 
herself disliked in some parts of town, and some 
people seem to think she is in a way responsible 
for the whole thing. A Portuguese woman asked 
Tippy the other day how long she supposed that 
‘ ‘ Mrs. Tucker ’s war ’ ’ was going to last. She said 
Babe is down in their back yards every few days. 


“ MISSING 


295 


looking into their slop-pails and scolding some- 
thing fierce if she finds the potato parings thicker 
than she says they can be. Poor Babe ! Between 
the demands of her patriotism and the demands of 
her difficult parents she is almost distracted at 
times. 

I wish I could write down in these pages all the 
funny things that happen. Never a day goes by, 
either at the office or the Ked Cross work-rooms, 
that something amusing doesn’t come up. But 
by the time I’ve told it in one letter for Barby 
to pass on to Father, and in another to make Kich- 
ard laugh, I haven’t the patience to write it all 
out again here. The consequence is I’m afraid 
I’ve given the wrong impression of these last few 
months. One would think there have been no good 
times, no good cheer. That it’s been all work and 
grim duty. But such is not the case. My letters 
will testify to that, and it’s only because so much 
time and energy have gone into them that things 
have to be crowded into a few brief paragraphs 
in this book. 

Despite all the gruesomeness of war and my sep- 
aration from my family, I am so busy that I’m 
really and truly happy from morning till night. 
I enjoy my work at the office and my work at home 
and all the kinds of war-work that come my way. 
It’s a satisfaction merely to turn out clean, well- 


296 GEOKGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


typed pages, but it’s bliss unalloyed to know that 
the money I’m getting for doing it is going to buy 
bread and bullets to bring about the downfall of 
the Kaiser. 

Sometimes when old Mr. Sammy is feeling espe- 
cially hopeful and there’s nobody in the office but 
me, he begins to hum an old camp-meeting tune 
that they sing at his church : 

^‘Coming bye and bye, coming bye and bye! 

A better day is dawning, the morning draweth 
nigh.” 

I join in with a convincing alto, and afterwards 
we say what a glorious old world this will be when 
that day really gets here. ^‘When Johnny comes 
marching home again, hurrah,” the war won and 
the world made a safe place for everybody. How 
lovely it will be just to draw a full breath and 
settle down and live. 

At such times it seems such a grand privilege 
to have even the smallest share in bringing that 
victory about, that he ’s all but shouting when we 
get through talking, and I’ve accumulated enough 
enthusiasm to send me through the next week with 
a whoop. Sometimes if there isn’t anything to do 
right then in the office, I turn from the desk and 
look out of the window, with eyes that see far be- 


“MISSING’^ 


297 


yond the harbor to the happy dawning we Ve been 
singing about. 

I see Eichard . . . climbing the Green Stairs 
. . . coming into the little home we furnished to- 
gether in fancy . . . the little Dream-home where 
I’ve spent so many happy hours since. I can see 
the smile in his dear eyes as he holds his arms out 
to me . . . having earned the right to make all our 
dreams come true . . . having fought the good 
fight . . . and kept the faith . . . that all homes 
may be safe and sacred everywhere the wide world 
over. . . . 

When one can dream dreams like that, one can 
put up with “the long, long night, of waiting,” 
knowing it will have such a heavenly ending. 

April 6, 1918. One year ago to-day the United 
States declared 

I had written only that far last Saturday night 
when I looked up to see Tippy standing in the door 
holding out the evening paper. I felt as I heard 
her coming along the hall that something was the 
matter. She walked so hesitatingly. Something 
in her face seemed to make my heart stand still, 
and stopped the question I started to ask. She 
didn’t seem to be able to speak, just spread the 
paper on the table in front of me and pointed to 


298 GEOKGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


something. Her finger was shaking. The four 
black words she pointed to seemed to leap up into 
my face as I read them: 

‘^Lieutenant Richard Moreland, Missing.” 

Those four black words have been in front of 
my eyes ever since. They were in the official an- 
nouncement that “Cousin James” brought down 
next day. He had been notified as next of kin. 

At first they seemed more bearable than if 
they’d said killed or seriously wounded. I didn’t 
quite grasp the full meaning of “missing.” But 
I do now. I heard “Cousin James” say in a low 
tone to Tippy, out in the hall, something about 
death being more merciful than falling alive into 
the hands of the Germans. He told her some of 
the things they do. I know he’s afraid that Rich- 
ard has been taken prisoner. 

He keeps telling me that we mustn’t be down- 
hearted. That we must go on hoping as hard as 
we can that everything will turn out all right. The 
War Department is doing its best to trace him, and 
if he’s a prisoner we’ll spare no expense and ef- 
fort to get food through to him. They always 
treat aviators with more consideration than other 
soldiers, and I mustn’t worry. But he doesn’t 


“ MISSING 


299 


look one bit the way he talks. His face is so hag- 
gard that I know he’s frightened sick. 

Barby is, too, or she wouldn’t have come all 
the way home to tell me the very same things that 
he did. She wants to take me back to Washing- 
ton with her till we have farther news. She’s 
cabled to Father. I know they all think it’s 
strange that I take it so quietly, but I ’ve felt numb 
and dazed ever since those four black words 
leaped up at me from the paper. I wish they 
wouldn’t be so tender with me and so solicitous 
for my comfort. It’s exactl}^ the way they’d act 
if Richard were dead. I’m glad “Cousin James” 
went right back. He looked at me the way Tippy 
does, as if she pities me so that it breaks her 
heart. She doesn’t know what her face shows. 
None of them realize that their very efforts to be 
cheerful and comforting show that their hope- 
fulness is only make-believe. 



CHAPTEE XXVI 


''the service of shining’’ 

Away down the crooked street sounds a faint 
clang of the Towncrier’s bell. Uncle Darcy is 
out again with it, after his long, shut-in winter. 
But he is coming very, very slowly. Even the 
warm sunshine of this wonderful May afternoon 
cannot quicken his rheumatic old feet so that they 
do more than crawl along. It will be at least half 
an hour before he reaches the Green Stairs. He 
will sit down to rest a bit on the bottom step, as 
he always does now, and I’ll run down and meet 
him there. 

He helps me more than anyone else, because, 
more than anyone else, he understands what I am 
enduring. He remembers what he endured all 
those anxious years when Danny was missing. 
It’s a comfort to have him tell me over and over 
how his “line to live by” kept him afloat and 
brought him into port with all flags flying, and 
that it will do the same for me if I only hold to 
300 


“THE SERVICE OF SHINING’’ 


301 


it fast and hard enough. So I set my teeth to- 
gether and repeat grimly as he used to do : 

“I will not bate a jot 
Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
Right onward.” 

But my imagination won’t let me say it in a 
way to do much good. It keeps showing me dread- 
ful pictures of Richard; of what might have hap- 
pened to him. I keep seeing his body in some 
God-forsaken field, lying shattered and marred 
past recognition by the enemy’s guns, his dead 
face turned up to the sky. Or I see him falling 
headlong to earth in a blazing plane, or, worst of 
all, in the filth of a German prison camp, weak, 
wounded, famishing for food and water and tor- 
tured in a thousand ways that only the minds of 
those demons can invent. All the things I’ve read 
as happening to other men I imagine happening to 
him. I see those things over and over and over 
till I nearly go mad. 

When I fold the gauze into bandages and sew 
the long seams in the hospital garments, with 
every movement and every stitch I wonder if he 
needs such comforts, and if needing them, they 
are given or denied him. I know it doesn’t do any 
good to say that I am hoping as long as I persist 


302 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


in such imaginings, but I don’t want to think 
about anything but Richard. My hands go on 
working in a normal way, but when I’m not tor- 
turing myself as to his whereabouts, I am re-living 
the past, or picturing the empty years ahead if 
he should never come back to me. I can’t help it. 

Because in one of his letters he mentioned that 
old figurehead on the roof of the Tupman’s por- 
tico, I have taken to walking past the house every 
day. Everything even remotely connected with 
him seems sacred now, even the things he used 
to laugh at. Because the memory of the figure- 
head helped him to hang on to the wrecked plane 
till rescue came, I feel as grateful to it as if it 
were a human being. Every time I pass it I tell 
myself I won’t stop hoping for a single minute. 
I won’t let myself believe anything else but that 
he’ll come back to me some day. Then with the 
next breath comes that awful vision of him lying 
dead in some lonely spot where he can never be 
found, and it seems to me I simply can’t go on 
living. 

“Cousin James” still writes encouragingly, but 
as the weeks go by and no trace of him can be 
found in any of the hospitals and no news of him 
comes through any of the foreign offices, the sus- 
pense is getting to be unbearable. I can’t admit 
to anyone how horribly afraid I am, but it is a 


‘‘THE SERVICE OF SHINING’’ 303 


relief to confess it here. Now that I’ve done so, 
I ’ll run down and talk to Uncle Darcy awhile. He 
is the living embodiment of hope and faith. The 
confident, happy way with which he looks forward 
to joining Aunt Elspeth soon makes me feel bet- 
ter every time I am with him. It brings back what 
Richard said the day she was buried: “All that 
they were to each other we will be to one another, 
and more.” If I could only be sure that after this 
terrible waiting will come such long, placid years 
as they had ! Years of growing nearer and dearer, 
in a union that old age only strengthens, and death 
cannot sever. 

Mid-June, and still no word! Now that no new 
letters ever come, I read the old ones over and 
over. The one I take out oftenest is the one which 
says, “No matter what happens, you’ll go around 
in the circle of your days, true to your ideals and 
your sense of duty. You won’t go into a cloud of 
mourning. . . . You will live out your life as it 
was intended, just like that star.” 

Always, until to-night, that letter has been a 
comfort, because it tells of his wonderful rescue, 
and gives me the feeling that if he could escape 
so marvelously one time he can another. But re- 
reading that paragraph a while ago, I suddenly 
saw something in it that I’d never discovered be- 


304 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


fere. It shows he must have had a presentiment 
that he ’d never get back to me. He knew what was 
going to happen, else why should he have said 
“you won’t go into a cloud of mourning . . . 
you ’ll live out your life as it was intended ! ’ ’ The 
discovery of that premonition takes away the last 
little straw that I’ve been clinging to. He felt 
what was going to happen. It has happened. It 
must be so, for it is over two months now since 
he was first reported missing. 

One goes on because one must. We’re made 
that way on purpose, I suppose. When sight fails 
Ave still have touch. We can feel our way through 
the dark with groping fingers. 

All the glad incentive for living is gone, but 
when I look at the star in the little service flag 
which stands for Richard, every atom of me lifts 
itself like a drawn sword to pledge itself to greater 
effort. His sacrifice shall not he in vain! 

And when I look at the star that stands for 
Father, I make the same vow. He is sacrificing 
himself just as surely as Richard did, though he’s 
giving his life by inches. His health is going, and 
his strength. Twenty-four hours at a stretch at 
the operating table is too much for any man, and 
that’s what he’s had to endure a number of times 
recently after the big enemy offensives. Always 


“THE SERVICE OF SHINING” 305 


he’s on a strain. One of Mr. Carver’s friends 
who saw him not long ago, wrote home that he has 
aged terribly. He looks fifteen years older than 
when we saw him. Tippy says I’m burning the 
candle at both ends, but I don’t care if I can only 
keep burning till we’ve put an end to this mad 
carnage. 

The other day when I passed the Figurehead 
House, Mrs. Tupman called me in and asked me if 
I’d be vdlling to tell the story of Richard’s rescue 
and the little Carrier Pigeon’s part in it, at the 
Town Hall this week. There’s to be a big rally 
for selling Thrift Stamps. She wanted me to 
show the children the tiny aluminum bracelet and 
cartridge which held the S. 0. S. call. She was 
sure that if they could hear how one little pigeon 
saved the lives of two officers, they would be im- 
pressed with the importance of small things. 
They would be more interested in saving their 
pennies if they could think of their stamps as little 
wdngs, speeding across the seas to save the lives 
of our armies. 

But I told her I couldn’t. I’d do anything im- 
personal that she might ask, but I couldn’t get up 
before a crowd and speak of anything so inti- 
mately connected with Richard. I could have done 
it gladly when he was alive, but now that little 
link of aluminum has associations too sacred for 


306 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


me to hold up for the curious public to gape at. 

But after supper, out in the row-boat, I saw 
things differently. I was paddling around near 
shore, watching the wonderful afterglow reflected 
in the water, pink and mother-of-pearl and faint- 
est lavender. It was all unspeakably beautiful, as 
it has been countless times when Richard was out 
with me. Because of the conviction that we’d 
never again see it together, the very beauty of it 
gave me a lonely, hopeless sort of heart-ache. It 
is one of the most desolate sensations in the world, 
and it is a poignant pain to remember that “ten- 
der grace of a day that is dead,” which “can never 
come back to me.” 

As those -words floated dreamily through my 
memory, with them came the recollection of the 
time I had repeated them in this very boat, and 
Richard’s unexpected answer which set Captain 
Kidd to barking. I could hear again his hearty 
laugh and the teasing way he said, “That’s no 
way for a good sport to do. ’ ’ It brought him back 
so plainly that I could almost see him sitting there 
opposite me in the boat, so big and cheerful and 
alive. The sense of nearness to him was almost as 
comforting as if he had really spoken. 

And then, knowing him as well as I do, knowing 
exactly how he always responded, in such a com- 
mon-sense, matter-of-fact way, I could imagine the 


“THE SERVICE OF SHINING 


307 


answer he would make were I to tell him of Mrs. 
Tupman’s request. 

‘ ‘ Why, sure ! ’ ' he ’d say. ‘ ‘ Tell the story of the 
little pigeon, and make it such a ripping good one 
there won’t be a dry eye in the house. It’ll give 
the little fellow tlie chance for another flight. 
Every stamp they sell ^\il\ be in answer to an 
S.O.S. call of some kind, and if it’s the bird that 
makes them buy, it’ll be just the same as if his own 
little wings had carried the message.” 

The thought cheered me up so much that I went 
straight home and telephoned to Mrs. Tupman 
that I’d reconsidered, and I’d gladly do what she 
asked me to. 

Since then I’ve taken to going out in the boat 
whenever my courage is at low ebb. Out there on 
the water, in the peace of the vast twilight drop- 
ping down on the sea, I can conjure up that sense 
of his nearness as nowhere else. It has the same 
effect on my feverish spirit as if his big firm hand 
closed gently over mine. It quiets my forebod- 
ings. It steadies me. It makes me know past all 
doubting that no matter what has happened, he is 
still mine. His love abides. Death cannot take 
that. 

Oh, what does a person do who is so glad — so 
crazy glad that he must find vent for his joy, when 


308 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


there are no words made great enough to express 
it? We’ve had news of Richard! He’s safe! He 
escaped from a German prison camp. That’s all 
we know now, but it is all of heaven to know that 
much. 

The news of his safety came as suddenly as the 
word that he was missing. Tippy called me to 
come down to the telephone. Long distance 
wanted me. It was “Cousin James.” He had a 
cablegram from that Canadian friend of Rich- 
ard’s. We had an expensive little jubilee for a 
while there. You don’t think of how much it’s 
costing a minute when you’re talking about the 
dead coming to life. It was as wonderful as that. 

“Cousin James” said undoubtedly we would 
have letters soon. The fact that Richard had not 
cabled for himself, made him afraid that he was 
laid up for repairs. He was probably half-starved 
and weak to the point of exhaustion from all he ’d 
gone through in making his escape. So we must 
have patience if we didn’t hear right away. We 
could wait for details now that we had the greatest 
news of all, and so forth and so on. 

The moment he rang off I started dovm to Uncle 
Darcy’s, telling Tippy all there was to tell, as I 
clapped on my hat and hurried through the hall. 
I started down the back street half running. The 
baker’s cart gave me a lift down Bradford Street. 


“THE SERVICE OF SHINING’’ 309 


I was almost breathless when I reached the 
gate. 

Uncle Darcy was dozing in his arm-chair set 
out in the dooryard. There flashed into my mind 
that day long ago, when his hopes found happy 
fulfillment and Dan came home. That day Father 
came back from China and we all went out to meet 
the ship and came ashore in the motor boat. And 
now I called out to him what I had called to him 
then, through the dashing spray and the noise of 
the wind and waves and motor: 

“It pays to keep hope at the prow, Uncle 
Darcy!” 

And he, rousing up with a start at the familiar 
call, smiled a welcome and answered as he did 
when I was a child, the same affectionate light in 
his patient old eyes. 

“Aye, lass, it does that!** 

“And we’re coming into port with all flags fly- 
ing!” 

Then he knew. The trembling joy in my voice 
told him. 

“You’ve heard from Richard!” he exclaimed 
quaveringly, “and you’ve come to tell the old man 
first of all. I knew you would.” 

And then for a little while we sat and rejoiced 
together as only two old mariners might, who had 
each known shipwreck and storm and who had 


310 GEORGINA SERVICE STARS 


each known the joy of finding happy anchorage 
in his desired haven. 

On the way home I stopped to tell Babe. Good 
old Babe. She was so glad that the tears streamed 
down her face. 

“Now I can help with your wedding,^’ was her 
first remark. “Of course, he’ll have to be in- 
valided home, for I don’t suppose he’s more than 
skin and bone if he’s been in the hands of the Ger- 
mans all this time. But, under the circumstances, 
you won’t mind marrying a living skeleton. I 
know 1 wouldn’t if I were in your place. He’ll be 
coming right back, of course.” 

Everybody I met seemed to think the same thing. 
They took it for granted that he’d done all that 
could be expected of a man. That three months 
in a German prison was equal to several dyings. 
After I got home I told Captain Kidd. He was 
lying on the rug inside the hall door with his nose 
between his paws, seemingly asleep. “Richard’s 
coming,” was all I said to him, but up he scram- 
bled with that little yap of joy and ran to the 
screen door scratching and whining to be let out. 
It was so human of him that I just grabbed his 
shaggy old head in my arms and hugged him tight. 
“ He ’s coming some day, ’ ’ I explained to him, “but 
we’ll have to wait a while, old fellow, maybe a 


“THE SERVICE OF SHINING^’ 311 


long, long while. But we won’t mind that now, 
after all weVe been through. Just now it’s 
enough to know that he’s alive and safe.” 

My Nineteenth Birthday. It’s wonderful that 
Richard’s letter should happen to get here on this 
particular day. The sight of his familiar hand- 
writing gave me such a thrill that it brought the 
tears. It was almost as if he had called my name, 
seeing it written out in his big, bold hand. 

He says he can’t tell me the details of his expe- 
riences now. They are too tierce for him to at- 
tempt to put on paper till he is stronger. Babe 
was right. He’s almost the shadow of his former 
self. But he says he is beginning to pick up 
famously. He is in Switzerland, staying with a 
family who were old friends of his father’s. They 
are taking royal care of him, and he’s coming 
around all right. The wound in his arm (he 
doesn’t say how he got it) is healing rapidly. 

Oh, it^s a dear letter — all the parts in between 
about wanting to see me, and my being doubly 
dear to him now — but he doesn’t say a word about 
coming home. Not one word! 

A Week Later. He has written again, and he is 
not coming home until the war is over. He’ll be 
able to go back into the service in a couple of 


312 GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 


months, maybe sooner, if he stays on quietly there. 
It isn’t that he does not want to come. He has 
been behind the lines and seen the awfulness. It 
must be stopped. Those prison camps must be 
mped out! We must win as soon as possible! 
He feels, as never before, the necessity for quick 
action, and he makes me feel it too. 

“Dad’s sacrifice must not be in vain,” he writes. 
“Nor Belgium’s, nor the hordes of brave men who 
have fallen since. And we must not go on sacri- 
ficing other lives. This thing has got to be 
stopped! 

“I know you feel the same way about it, Georg- 
ina. I’m sure that you want me to stay on here 
without asking for a furlough, since by staying I 
can be up and at it again sooner. Say that you 
do, dearest, so that I may feel your courage back 
of me to the last ditch.” 

I have said it. The answer is already on its 
way. How could I be selfish enough to think of 
anything but the great need? I am only one of 
many. In millions of windows hang stars that 
tell of anxious hearts, just as anxious as mine, 
and of men at the front just as dear to those who 
love them as mine. I can wait! 

And waiting — 

1 see Richard .... climbing the Green Stairs 
.... coming into the little Home of our Breams! 


“THE SERVICE OF SHINING 313 


I see the smile in his dear eyes as he holds out his 

arms to me having earned the right to 

make all those dreams come true .... having 
fought the good fight .... and kept the faith 
. . . . that all homes may he safe and sacred 
everywhere, the wide world over .... 

And seeing thus, I can put up with my “long, 
long night of waiting,’^ thinking only of that 
heavenly ending! 





1 


t 


t 



f 


I 


f • « 


• ’ 

' . I 

r . 


!• 


V 

/ ' 




I 





r . 





V 


iti 




; ^ 


. V 

♦ 

*1 


A ' 




» 

«, 




I 

IV , <^ 


I 


■ \ / 


r 


1 


i 


« 






1 


*1 k 





















LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


